Ben Coley reflects on Tiger Woods' victory in the Zozo Championship and its wider implications as he looks back on the latest golfing weekend.
Tiger Woods
It took until Monday, but Tiger Woods has his 82nd PGA Tour title after a dominant, three-shot victory in the Zozo Championship. He is now the equal of Sam Snead in the history books, one away from setting a new benchmark which will surely never be reached.
For some, transgenerational pissing contests are neither necessary nor particularly dignified, but in this instance it feels important. Snead – a colossus, no doubt – compiled his extraordinary numbers in a more ordinary time, some with the aid of a partner, and Woods deserves to be the most decorated player in the history of the game.
It would have been a shame if he had ended his career on 81 wins, just as it would have been a shame had he ended his career on 14 major championships. In 2019, somehow, Lazarus with a limp dealt with both.
Fitting, too, that Woods’ latest milestone should be reached in Japan, where the PGA Tour broke new ground in the Zozo Championship.
Despite Friday’s play being washed out altogether and Saturday’s delayed second round being closed to spectators, this tournament was a success made sweeter by the game’s greatest answering questions posed chiefly by Hideki Matsuyama, for a while now Japan’s major champion in waiting.
Hordes of spectators turned out when they were allowed to, most of them keeping their phones in their pockets and choosing to witness rather than to record history. Japan it seems is a nation in love with golf, and five days on the outskirts of Tokyo left one wondering why it’s taken so long for the very best golfers to get here.
This year, the world’s premiere circuits have both entered new territory. One (richer, yes, and in a position of relative luxury) went to Japan. The other (poorer, yes, and in a position of relative weakness) went to Saudi Arabia, renting some of the best players to help deliver what had been expected.
One event had soul, the other was utterly soulless, and while some might argue that comparing the two is no more necessary than to compare Woods and Snead, there is a lesson to be learned here. Perhaps the European Tour ought to seek out an existing audience for its next venture, rather than take the money under the nonsense pretence of wishing to develop a new one.
