The "Next" Tiger Woods

The talk about who can be the next Tiger Woods has started up again this week. This week the LPGA Tour saw it's record for the youngest winner broken by 15 year old Lydia Ko from New Zealand. This is a major accomplishment for the youngster. On top of this, she is also a national champion in both New Zealand and the United States. But she is not the only one to rate such comparison.

Rory McIlroy won the PGA Championship a few weeks back. Immediately that prompted reports to compare him to Tiger and how they won majors. Rory is now one of eight active golfers on the PGA Tour with more than one major championship victory and by far the youngest.

So naturally these two golfers might be compared to Tiger Woods and his accomplishments at a young age. But does the world of golf really need another Tiger Woods?

To be sure, Tiger Woods has electrified the sports world for fifteen years now; longer than young Miss Ko has been alive in fact. He has set records and done things few thought possible from one side of the planet to the other. But, of course, there is that other side of Tiger Woods, the one the world found out about in the days and weeks after November 27, 2009 and it is that side that must be considered, along with the golf, that must be considered when we talk about the "next" Tiger Woods.

Tiger's golf records are among the elite of the elite. He will almost certainly break Sam Snead's now forty-seven year old record for most PGA Tour wins. It is also likely that he will break Jack Nicklaus's twenty-six year old major championship record, though not as likely as it was four years ago. He has also made more money than any athlete in history.

But what of the rest? What about the fact that he spun a giant web of lies, feeding the public this image of a wholesome family man when the reality was something vastly different. The reality of the situation is that Eldrick Woods is a habitually unfaithful megalomaniac who surrounds himself with a bunch of bootlicking, glad-handing, yes men. The fact that he is capable of playing high level golf is secondary to all of this.

No, the world of golf needs no more than one Tiger Woods. Certainly one must be enough. Perhaps we should ask who will be the next Tom Watson  or Phil Mickelson. Those two, while having some vices and not being quite the same caliber of golfer as Tiger, are certainly better overall people than is Tiger. Perhaps the time has come to stop glorifying Tiger Woods and look at him for what he really has become.

Even after his "transgressions" as he, well, I suppose the truth would be his speech writers, phrased it, he has made no real change. He still, seemingly, surrounds himself with various and numerous ladies. He is still a stand-offish tool with the media. He still employee's a flock of yes-men, bowing at his feet. Indeed, it would seem poor, and almost insulting, to compare young Miss Ko to Tiger Woods.

No, the media obsession with comparing people to Tiger Woods, comparisons that have been going on for ten years now, are poor and inappropriate nowadays. Tiger has long since violated any trust people may have had. Anyone breaking into golf today should hope that they are not the next Tiger Woods. Unless, of course, they want to forever be known as someone who lied to the public for years and, overnight, went from Tiger Woods: Great Golfer to Tiger Woods: Adulterer and Liar.