Tiger and Ernie Pack a 1-2 Punch

It’s true, golf is always looking for the next big thing, and now here it is: Tiger and Ernie. This is definitely not Sesame Street.

No, what Tiger Woods and Ernie Els bring to the party is box office. They’re two heavyweights at center stage, part three-ring circus, part opening night and totally captivating.

In the basement of some experimental facility, a bunch of guys in white lab jackets standing next to a bank of Bunsen burners, rows of petri dishes, bundles of graphite and stacks of titanium couldn’t have come up with a better product.

A lot of people have spent a lot of time trying to come up with a player who could stand on even ground with Woods and take him on. Els even had the job at one time and he lasted, oh, until Woods beat him by 15 shots at Pebble Beach and won the U.S. Open three years ago.

Some thought David Duval had the perfect mix to match Tiger’s wiles, and for a while, he did. The only player to be ranked No. 1 other than Woods in the last five years, Duval ended Tiger’s 41-week run at the top for a period in 1999.

Duval won 11 times in 16 months, then started showing some slippage when his back acted up, followed in short order by his neck and shoulder. If Duval can get his body parts to behave, a comeback should not be unexpected.

In the meantime, or until somebody else throws his credentials in the ring and proves his own ability to wow, we’ve got just what we’ve been looking for.

That would be the two best players in the world, at the pinnacle of their careers, at the tops of their games. If heights make you dizzy, you’d better grab hold of something right away.

Now, very quickly, for everyone keeping score at home: Tiger has won every tournament he has played this year and Ernie has won just about every tournament he has played this year. Bingo, you’re up to date on golf so far.

Woods won last week at Torrey Pines in his surgically delayed debut on the PGA Tour, while Els has won four of the five he has played, including the tour’s first two acts, at Kapalua and Honolulu.

But there’s so much more to Els than cashing in on the Hawaiian daily double.

For instance, last week at Perth, Australia, in the Johnnie Walker Classic, Els set a scoring record and won by 10 shots. Exhibiting a stylish knack for even numbers, he is exactly 100 under par in his 20 rounds.

Do not think that any of this has escaped Tiger’s attention. But put aside Ernie’s victories and his record and his scores, there is something else guaranteed to catch Tiger’s eye: money.

Besides winning tournaments, Woods is happiest when he is collecting checks. He has been the leading money winner on the PGA Tour for the last five years, but Els is about $1 million ahead right now.

The money in pro golf is crazy, so that is why there is $6 million on the line next week at the match play tournament at La Costa, where Woods and Els will be at the same event for the first time this year.

It’s golf’s first heavyweight bout of 2003. Chances are they might not go head-to-head and wallet-to-wallet, since it’s match play. That means both Woods and Els would have to win all five of their matches to meet in the final.

Because neither one has included the match play event in their repertoire of tournament victories, a Woods-Els showdown falls short of being a given.

The best chance for something like that might be a week later in a European Tour event at Dubai, if they decide to make the trip, or better yet, two weeks from that at Bay Hill.

For their parts, neither Woods nor Els has gone to any length at all to stir up the rivalry issue. But then, neither did Palmer and Nicklaus, or Hogan and Snead or Ali and Frazier ... all right, bad example on that one. Substitute Hootie and Martha, who antagonize each other without even trying.

Woods says the rivalry is a media creation, but he has to realize the value in it. He has won eight majors and there surely are more to come, but his victories have been more about cold, hard numbers and records. Think about how much more personal and deep major championships become if they are achieved while locked in an intense battle with the primary challenger to this throne.

The appeal of a rivalry to Els is even greater. Beating Tiger is instant validation, not that Ernie, with three major titles, needs much of that, but also unmistakable proof he wasn’t dropped into the wrong decade of golf after all.

You just can’t make this stuff up, and the good news is that nobody did, it’s being handed to us. And it’s about time, or maybe history.