LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- It's been 18 years since a skinny Tiger Woods stepped up to a podium before a modest media gathering at the Greater Milwaukee Open and said, "Hello, world," launching a career that would soar to stratospheric heights.
Almost from the time he started winning, which was right away, the golf world has been trying to anoint the next Tiger. To be sure, Woods has had some worthy adversaries -- Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and David Duval, to name a few.
But it should be obvious by now. There is no next Tiger. Guys like him don't come along in every box of Titleists.
We use the past tense because that Woods, the golfer whose dominance transcended the sport and made him a global icon, is no more.
Even as he plays in the 96th PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club this week, Woods has virtually no chance to win. His surgically repaired back locked up Sunday and forced him to withdraw after eight holes in the final round of the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational.
Woods has played hurt, in varying degrees and with different injuries, for at least seven years. His game is a shadow of what it once was. Not a single player on the PGA Tour says, "I wish I could hit it like Tiger does." On Sundays -- when he makes it that far -- he's just another player in a red shirt.
But there is no one on the horizon, or on the horizon of the horizon, who will do what he did. It's hard to imagine any young golfer, however talented, winning 14 major championships and 79 Tour titles.
So, to be clear, Rory McIlroy is not the "next Tiger."
But he's really, really good. He's fun to watch. He has talent oozing out of his pores. At 25, he's already won a bunch -- eight times on the PGA Tour, including three majors -- and he's going to win a bunch more.
McIlroy, coming off back-to-back victories at the British Open and Firestone, goes into the PGA Championship as the prohibitive favorite. Bovada has him at 9-to-2 odds, with Adam Scott second at 12-to-1. It's territory that Woods once owned at the majors, and wherever else he stuck a tee in the ground.
"I've had a great run of golf, and I've played well over the past few months," McIlroy said Tuesday. "Look, I said at the start of the year that golf was looking for someone to put their hand up and sort of become one of the dominant players in the game. I felt like I had the ability to do that."
With his victory Sunday, McIlroy ascended to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking, ending Scott's nine-week run at the top.
"I think the right guy is at No. 1 at the moment," Scott said. "He's played the best over the last couple months."
McIlroy, the 2012 PGA champion, is in command of all parts of his game. Asked to identify a weakness, or at least something he needs to work on, he had a hard time coming up with an answer.
"If there's a weakness ... I wouldn't say there's a weakness but there's always things you can improve, of course," he said after some deliberation. "I would maybe like to improve my bunker play a little bit."
Well, sure. And a 1963 Corvette looks better with shiny tires.
McIlroy is No. 3 on the FedEx Cup points list, No. 2 in scoring average (69.057) and No. 2 on the money list with $5,165,896 -- exactly $765 behind leader Bubba Watson. He has eight top-10 finishes in 12 starts and has finished among the top 25 in all of them.
What has set him apart this year? His driver. He is long -- No. 3 in average driving distance at 310.3 yards, with 33.9 percent of his drives traveling at least 320 -- and is hitting fairways. As long as Woods once was, he was never consistently in the short grass.
"I'm definitely hitting it longer over the past couple years," McIlroy said, crediting his work in the weight room. "I've always had the speed and I've always had the power, but I haven't really had the strength or the stability to hold on to it my whole way through the swing.
"I don't feel like I need any more distance. If I can hit it over 300 yards and hit it in the fairway most of the time, I'm happy enough with that."
He said he was trying not to read the gushing stories that have been written about him in recent weeks.
"Sometimes I feel that people are too quick to jump to conclusions and jump on the bandwagon and jump on certain things," he said. "If I read everything that was being written, I'd turn up on the first tee Thursday thinking I'd already won the tournament."
McIlroy isn't on Woods' level, but he's the best player in the world and could be for some time. That's a pretty good place to be.
Sports on 08/08/2014