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Tiger Woods.
That’s the name I still get asked about all the time. I get it from friends, followers and radio hosts asking the question that everybody wants to hear, and even from family members at times.
“What’s golf going to do without Tiger?”
Forget Rory McIlroy’s back-to-back major wins, or Phil Mickelson continuing to sit a major away from the career Grand Slam. Who cares about Jordan Spieth’s run a year ago, a par putt on the Road Hole and a red-hot Australian away from winning all four majors in the same season, a feat not even Tiger was able to accomplish (although the Tiger Slam continues to be underrated in the rafters of sports accomplishments).
This Jason Day run in 2016, coming off the heels of his first major win at last year’s PGA Championship, has seen the 28-year-old win three times already and finish in the top 25 in all but two of his starts this season on the PGA Tour.
And with all due respect, none of those names are the most dominant in the game right now.
There is a player who sits in front of us with all the accolades and trophies at a younger age than Tiger ever was when he started to dominate professional golf, yet nobody seems to notice.
We have a golfer who does silly things as a teenager each and every week, surprising us not with her talent, but with her consistency, her poise, and her perspective.
It’s just sad you don’t know who I’m talking about.
It’s disappointing that the week of the U.S. Women’s Open (Thursday, 3 p.m. ET, FS1), the biggest tournament in women’s golf, no national news outlets are chatting about what’s going on. They’re ignoring the fact that a 19-year-old currently sits atop a professional sport and doesn’t look to be giving that top spot up anytime soon.
Major news outlets are ignoring the fact that a 19-year-old with two majors and 18 professional wins and a personality that makes you almost wish she was meaner has a chance to add the most coveted trophy in her sport to her mantle this weekend at CordeValle.
Lydia Ko won the Evian Championship in 2015, her first major title. (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
Tiger didn’t win his first major until he was 21 years old. This 19-year-old already has two and is the favorite this week at the U.S. Women’s Open.
Rory is the only name in that group of the new-age Big Three that has won more majors than this 19-year-old, and he was 25 years old by the time he got more than two (he won his first at 22).
“What she’s been able to do in terms of creating shots on the golf course is remarkable at such a young age,” Christina Kim, a three-time winner on the LPGA and someone who turned pro at 18, said of the 19-year-old. “But more impressive yet is how she’s able to create opportunities in a tournament coming down the stretch in a way that nearly every golfer before her hasn’t been able to achieve. She doesn’t overpower the golf ball, but she carves a path to victory where most people can’t even see through the trees.”
So the question, of course, is why? Why do people ignore this great story? Why do they look past a young woman with all the heart off the golf course and all the heartlessness needed on it to dominate and simply ignore it?
Is it because she’s female? Is it because sports continue to grow younger and while this 19-year-old is amazing, an 18-year-old is No. 2 in the Rolex Rankings, which defines the best female golfer in the world, beat our superstar in a playoff earlier this year to win her first major championship?
Whatever the reason, it’s ridiculous. We want headlines and stories, and the LPGA continues to give them to us.
Brooke Henderson (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
Mike Whan, the LPGA commissioner, told me earlier this week that he got to play with this 19-year-old in a Pro-Am last month, and had one of the members ask, after nine holes, what college she went to.
“She looked at me and raised her shoulders,” Whan said. “If she was going to school, she’d be a freshman, but after nine holes of playing with her there is just no way of believing she is that age.”
This is a person that sent a thank you note to her Pro-Am partner after her first-ever event on the LPGA Tour. She sent chocolates to volunteers after becoming No. 1 in the world. To have this much game and this much perspective is not only unheard of, it’s confusing, because we are used to athletes becoming the best in their respective sports and then turning into some sort of creature that believes in me, me, me, and forgets about all the millions of "you's" out there that helped cheer you on as you ascended to that position.
Whatever your reason for ignoring what is currently happening in professional women’s golf, I urge you to spend a week and weekend taking in two teenagers who continue to do things we’ve never seen before.
The 19-year-old is Lydia Ko. The 18-year-old is Brooke Henderson. And they should be on your radar. It’s the best rivalry in golf these days, and frankly, it’s not even close.
