Column: Golf needs big names in contention to regain popularity

For the ninth consecutive time, golf crowned a first-time major winner this weekend at one of… For the ninth consecutive time, golf crowned a first-time major winner this weekend at one of the sport’s premier events — the United States Open.

Webb Simpson, a relatively unknown 26-year-old from North Carolina, continued the trend of new faces winning golf’s biggest prizes as he rallied from a four-stroke deficit on Sunday to win at the Olympic Club in San Francisco.

Simpson joined names like Bubba Watson, Keegan Bradley, Darren Clarke and Rory McIlroy on the list of recent first-time major winners, while the names that golf fans are used to seeing at the top of the leaderboard — Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson — continue to struggle in the four annual majors.

Golf hasn’t seen big-name dominance for quite some time now, and many would agree that the sport has suffered as a result.

The parity is good for up-and-coming golfers like Simpson, who have thoroughly capitalized on the absence of a dominating figure since Woods’ struggles following his much publicized off-the-course issues in 2009.

But for the sport of golf, the opposite seems to be true.

Like in other sports, parity is a good thing when it comes to breaking up old patterns of dominance; for instance, a lot of fans enjoy seeing the Los Angeles Lakers lose in the NBA and the New England Patriots suffer defeat in the NFL.

But when parity becomes the pattern, issues arise, especially in a sport like golf, where there are no storied franchises, coaches or anything else to talk about.

In golf, it always comes down to the players themselves and whether or not the stars are in contention.

If Tiger Woods’ decade-long stranglehold on golf teaches us one thing, it’s that the sport generates its popularity through dominating performances and multiple major winners frequently competing for the titles at the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship.

Golfers like Woods and Mickelson, who have combined to win 18 majors, attract fans and supporters to golf in a way that the unknown winners that the sport has seen recently simply don’t.

This is the reason that the media continues to extensively cover Woods, even during his recent stretch of relative mediocrity. And it’s the reason that each time a new face wins a major, we ask the question, “Is the Tiger Woods era over?”

When someone new earns the honor of winning a major tournament, it seems as though we give more attention to the fact that Tiger didn’t win than we do to the newcomer.

What the sport desperately needs is for one of these new talents to step up and win more than one major and begin to develop a persona and fanbase.

Remember the buzz Rory McIlroy was able to generate following his historic performance at the U.S. Open last year? His eight-shot victory in the 2011 American championship had people believing he could be the next star in golf. But he hasn’t finished in the top 10 of a major since.

Golf’s popularity is driven by its star power — ratings show the fans like it when the field tries to muster up a performance to beat one or a few guys, not vice versa.

People want to see a few big-name golfers trying to hold off the rest of the competition while simultaneously trying to beat each other out for recognition as the best in the game. But recently, we are just getting the field versus the field with no one competitor standing out over another as the favorite to win.

The result is each major winner being just another name lacking the connotations, gravity and appeal that come with being a star athlete.

It doesn’t take an avid golf fan to see that the sport is desperately looking for that next exceptional performer to step up and take control.

So it’s time for Woods, Mickelson or another golfer to break up the parity and return the sport to prominence.

It’s time for golf’s big names to start excelling on the big stages and putting it all on the line to reach levels of success that only the best of the best can reach.

You never know. Maybe this Webb Simpson fellow can be that next big name.