Time for Tiger to have fun with golf

JOHNS CREEK, Ga.

It is time for Plan B. For everyone in golf who has been holding their breath for Tiger Woods to bounce back and dominate, it is time to exhale and concentrate on something else, such as learning to live with things the way they are.

Woods is not close to dominating. He is not close to being a regular winner again. This week, he is closer to missing the cut, after having turned a great start (3 under par through five holes) into an unsightly finish (7 over) in the first round of the PGA Championship. To use a phrase that has spread like a bad cold in the industry, that is not "good for golf."

But, to use another familiar phrase, that is the rub of the green. Tough luck, like a nice drive that hits a rock and caroms into the water. Now is the time to realize Woods is not going to carry the whole sport the way he did from 1997 through the night in November 2009 when his SUV crashed outside his Florida home.

Considering that no one is close to being able to replace him, everyone is going to have to lower their expectations. Television ratings are not going to be as good as they were, the sport will not make as many people as rich as it did a few years back. Get used to it. It is going to be a while at least before Woods wins majors in bunches again. And he probably never again will be the icon he was.

Thursday was another bewildering episode for him, another slippage in the mojo that has eroded since his scandal broke. Woods actually said that he was doing fine for the first few holes while he focused on "mechanical" swing thoughts, then he went south when he decided to just let it fly. "It screwed up my whole round," he said.

This is how far he is from his form: Fixating on the backswing, downswing and follow-through instead of letting it loose is the exact opposite of the advice any of the 20 club pros in the field this week would give to his students.

Adding that he cannot play by instinct because he is not far enough along in his swing overhaul with new coach Sean Foley, Woods is making golf seem as complicated as balancing the federal budget or splitting the atom.

Figuring out his role in the sport is much simpler. He is a huge celebrity in a culture that can't get enough of celebrities. The better he plays, the more people watch golf. The more people watch golf, the more that companies can sell. Everybody prospers. Translated, that says, "good for golf."

But as Michael Hebron, the celebrated pro at Smithtown Landing, points out, there is a wide gap between the sport of golf and the game of golf. The former is big business, the latter is supposed to be fun.

Woods' influence on the game hasn't been as strong as it was on the sport. The courses that were built to accommodate the expected Tiger-inspired golf boom are struggling or, in the case of the Links at Shirley, have closed. Many people have given up because they found golf too difficult and time consuming.

Now is the time for everyone, including Woods, to loosen up (say or write anything about him, good or bad, and somebody gets really angry). He can set a good example if he stops making golf seem like such a tough, grim, joyless exercise. He should play a bunch of lower-profile tour events just for the heck of it, and not take himself so darned seriously. He ought to have a little fun out there for a change.

That should be Plan B.