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Long live the underdogs
With due respect to Mr. Woods, I'm glad Tiger didn't win his fifth straight major at the U.S Open. It would also be perfectly OK with me if Pete Sampras didn't lift his 8th Wimbledon singles crown. I don't want the Lakers to claim a hat trick of titles in next year's NBA either, and it would be excellent if Manchester United's fourth straight title was not forthcoming in next season's Premier League soccer campaign. Not that I have anything against these teams and individuals you understand. Each has achieved a level of excellence the like of which sporting dreams are made. They are simply the best of their era, and for that they're rightly saluted. However, just as there's a thin line between love and hate, so the line between awe and bore is also pretty narrow, and when one club or athlete starts to dominate so completely that the result is a foregone conclusion, then watching the annihilation can become a little tedious in my opinion.
The essence of great drama is conflict, and in sports that comes from competition. The great match-ups that are remembered through the ages, are the close ones, where it's been nip and tuck until the final second. The Immaculate Reception by the Pittsburgh Steelers' Franco Harris in the 1972 NFL play-offs that beat the Oakland Raiders. England's historic victory in the 1966 World Cup final, which came after West Germany forced extra time in the dying second of regulation. Even perhaps in the future, the just completed U.S Open, where Stewart Cink, Mark Brooks and Retief Goosen, could each have won it until the last of the 72 regulation holes were complete. Contests where the partipants leave their guts on the turf or court, and where, at the end of the day, WHO won is secondary to HOW they did it. Obviously, I'm not for a moment saying that repeat champions are somehow less deserving. They're not given their titles after all. It's just that had Tiger stepped up to the tee and won his fifth straight major as a matter of routine I believe the sport would have lost a vital element of doubt. If he can win 5 in a row, then why not 6? And if 6 why not 7? And if he can't be beaten, then why am I watching? Fortunately, that didn't happen. The uncertainty has been restored, and the ebb and flow of true competition was preserved, which in my view can only be a good thing.
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