"How's Tiger Doing?"

It is not, inherently, in the sports fan's nature to root for the dominant favorite. We love underdogs, the scrappy upstart coming from nowhere and upsetting the proverbial applecart; it's our own sad, tiny way of imagining that, sometimes, sports can speak truth to power.

But when it comes to golf, we find that almost no one roots against Tiger Woods. This makes sense; the average sports fan has no idea who Stephen Ames and Woody Austin are, so we're not so much rooting against them as we are rooting for history. Spending your entire Sunday watching some anonymous Oklahoman win his first a golf tournament can be perceived as a waste of time; watching Tiger Woods come within six majors of Jack Nicklaus is simply viewing history. In the airport coming back to New York yesterday, we sat in a Wolfgang Puck's and watched the final six holes of the PGA Championship. At least 10 people stopped, stood behind us and asked "How's Tiger doing?" All sports need stars, even if they're stars we hate. And we don't hate Tiger Woods.

Of course, it's now eight long months until the next major. (It's so long away that we will have crowned a World Series champ, a Super Bowl champ and an NCAA Tournament champ by the time golf has its next major.) So you may now commence returning to not caring about golf for a good while.