OPEN FOR DEBATE:Mark Cannizzaro says it’s a little too early to start drawing comparisons between Tiger Woods, seen kissing the U.S. Open trophy in 2008, and Rory McIlroy (above). (Getty Images)
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BETHESDA, Md. — Rory McIlroy hadn’t even stuck a tee in the ground on Congressional’s first hole to begin his final round yesterday when the TV and radio airwaves were buzzing with comparisons to Tiger Woods.
These comparisons are unfair to both McIlroy and Woods.
First of all, let’s give McIlroy, who won merely his first major championship and third overall career victory yesterday, time to grow and actually mount a chase on Woods’ excellence.
Secondly, and more importantly, let’s not diminish what Woods accomplished in the stretch of the most resounding dominance the game has ever seen en route to his 14 major championships.
It’s amazing how quickly a person’s absence — even someone as iconic as Woods — can make everyone forget so quickly.
Tiger Woods is still alive and breathing. He has a leg injury. He will be back — not likely before August this year at the earliest — but he’ll be back and he’ll win again. He’ll win more majors.
Yet, before McIlroy even began to close out his win yesterday, there were bold proclamations by those seduced by the Northern Irishman’s amazing performance this week that he would be the new face of golf, supplanting Woods as the world’s greatest player.
Even Padraig Harrington, after his round on Saturday, told reporters that McIlroy, not Woods, was the player he thought had the best chance to break Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championship victories.
You can bet Nike’s yearly profit margin that Woods, ailing at home in Florida while rehabilitating his left Achilles and knee injuries, was watching on TV this week with admiration and motivation at McIlroy’s remarkable performance at Congressional.
You can bet double that amount that Woods will be fueled by — and never forget — the words of all the prognosticators writing him off as a has-been.
McIlroy, to his credit, is not one of those people.
“Hopefully [Woods] can get healthy and can get back playing good golf, because the game of golf is a better place with him playing well,” McIlroy said of Woods.
Surely, Woods had flashbacks racing through his mind late yesterday when McIlroy walked onto the 18th green to a thunderous standing ovation soaking in the massive, eight-shot lead, ready to lift a major championship trophy.
Woods has lived that moment and he craves more like it.
“I remember Tiger in 2000 winning by 15 at Pebble,” McIlroy said. “I was trying to go out there and emulate him in some way.”
On this day, this week, he did.
But to suggest at this early stage of McIlroy’s career that he’s on his way to overtaking what Woods has done in the game is preposterous.
It’s amazing that the same people who are ready to anoint McIlroy as the next greatest player in the game, making the automatic assumption that Woods is done and gone for good, are the very people who not long ago were saying that there would never be another Tiger Woods.
Let’s give McIlroy time to marinate in this U.S. Open victory and see where he takes it from here, beginning at next month’s British Open at Royal St. Georges.
Let’s also give Woods a chance to return from his injuries and see where he takes his interrupted career from here.
This defense of Woods and his legacy is not meant to take a single thing away from McIlroy and what he accomplished this week, because he did things that only Woods has done in this generation.
“It’s like comparing Tiger to Jack early, and will he beat Jack’s record,” Davis Love III said. “That’s not a fair comparison until you get done with your career.”