Annika retirement raises the question 'when?' for Tiger
By John Maginnes, PGATOUR.COM Contributor
Annika Sorenstam's retirement has brought to light a question that no one in the game wants to ask. No player, fan or member of the media is quite ready to contemplate the idea of Tiger Woods flashing one last smile and saying, "I am taking my bat and my ball and going home."
I would imagine most of us would like to see him break Sam Snead's records before he goes -- not just the all-time wins mark, but the oldest player to ever win on TOUR, too. That seems a bit unlikely, though. Occasionally, Tiger is asked about the timeline of his career, and he deflects the question like a politician asked about taxes. The last time I heard the question posed, he smiled that $1-billion smile and said coyly, "Not today."
Every player dreams about riding off into the sunset with a sack full of goals achieved and nothing left to prove to him or herself. It doesn't work that way for most of us. It does for the greats, though, and because of the nature of the profession, they can walk away whenever they want. Someday, Tiger will, too, and he will have left the game in as good a shape as Annika will leave the LPGA Tour.
Tiger is the most popular athlete in the world, and he has made more guys with their names on their golf bags rich than he can imagine. Whenever he decides to step aside, he will have left the game irrevocably changed for the better. That is not in question. You have to wonder, though: how big a hole will he leave when he goes?
Despite the fact that she is having another great year, Annika's baton was passed a couple of years ago to a younger dominator who brings another element to the game. So it would be great if there was a Lorena Ochoa-like player on the PGA TOUR who can challenge he-who-is-without-rival before he walks away. For the first decade of Tiger's career we were looking to the older, established generation to give chase. We even called a group of them the Big Five, then the Big Four and then we realized that we were kidding ourselves and that there could be only one.
Since Tiger stepped aside for a moment to rehabilitate an ailing knee, no player older than him has won a TOUR event. As a matter of fact, every winner since New Orleans has been in their 20s except Boo Weekley. I don't know whether Andres Romero or Johnson Wagner can be the guy who steps up and beats the unbeatable one. There is an entire generation of peach-fuzzed cheeks out there right now who have that goal in mind, though. One aspect of the game that Tiger has changed is the mindset of those who come next. Players of a certain generation, after Jack Nicklaus and before Tiger, were not as concerned about dominating. They wanted to get to the TOUR and win as often as possible.
Printed reports have suggested that Tiger will do what he can to come back at the Memorial. If he does, even on crutches, he would be the overwhelming favorite. And if he does, like always, the eyes of the world will be watching. If the comparison to Annika's career is fair, though, then there has to be someone waiting in the wings, and it might not take that much longer to find him. Lorena is only in her fifth year on the LPGA Tour and already she has won 22 times, including five this year. Whether she will have the longevity that Annika and Tiger have had remains to be seen. If not, we shouldn't hold it against her; after all Tiger called Annika the "best of all time."
Tiger has been wearing that moniker since early in his career. The question for me is not so much when will he retire and what hole will it leave on the game as who will be next? No one is more aware of the fact that they are out there, whoever they are, than Tiger himself. We can only hope that they emerge before he says, "Good-bye world."
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