No Tiger Woods, No Lorena Ochoa - Will You Watch ?

I'll go out on a limb and assume you're a more than avid golf fan or you wouldn't be reading this now. Tepid fans turn on The Golf Channel. Rabid ones Google websites.

The men head to Texas this week for the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. Damn these tournament names are getting way too long. Adam Scott and brand spankin' new Masters champ Trevor Immelman lead the way. Last year was the first event since Lord Byron's passing and it was way more than fitting that Nelson disciple Scott Verplank won. Kind of mystical actually.

The women tee it up at the Stanford International Pro-Am. They claim a star studded field. How's that possible without Ochoa? Annika, Creamer, and Pettersen are all there, but it takes some luster from the star without Lorena. Kinda like putting lipstick on a pig. The pig doesn't look any better and it hates it.

With a wounded Woods until at least The Memorial, the men's tour's TV ratings should take a huge hit. Fortunately for the women, Ochoa's only resting for a week. Without the superstars will you watch? I won't. Sure, I'll check in online to see who's ahead and eventually who won, but the interest level for this average golfer is too low to dedicate hours of my weekend to watching the bench players. It's finally spring here in the woolly north. Spring here is about six days. It's too precious a commodity to waste on sub par, (pun intended), viewing. A double edged sword for network television when two super dominate players head both tours. The highs are high, but the lows can be extremely low. It's not their fault, but their eggs are firmly entrenched in just two baskets. Imagine a Patriots/Colts game with Tom Brady and Peyton Manning on the sidelines. Outside of Boston and Indianapolis, who would watch?

Til' next,