Golf exhibitions are nothing new

A staged event with only TV ratings riding on the outcome. A fabricated rivalry between two players who were paired only once before. A shameless amount of money for a short day of work.

What would Harry Vardon have said about the silly showdown between Tiger Woods and David Duval?

Probably something like, "What took so long?"

After all, Monday night's exhibition at Sherwood Country Club came exactly 100 years after Vardon beat Willie Park Jr. in a 72-hole challenge match played over two courses with a whopping 100 British pounds at stake per side.

The match caused quite a stir, particularly since Vardon had won the British Open in 1898 by one stroke over Park, himself a two-time Open champion. More than 10,000 spectators watched the first 36 holes at North Berwick, where Vardon finished 2-up. He wound up winning 11 and 10.

And that wasn't the only exhibition, although none of them had a slick title like "Showdown at Sherwood."

In 1922, the year Gene Sarazen won the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship and Walter Hagen won the British Open, they played a 72-hole match with $3,000 on the line.

Fifteen years later, a donor offered 500 pounds, winner-take-all, to see Open champion Henry Cotton play PGA champion Denny Shute. Cotton won the 72-hole match 6 and 5, although the sponsor wound up giving Shute 100 pounds for the effort.

"Back then, you got to play in a lot more events when you won a major," said Alistair Johnston, the executive vice president for IMG and somewhat of a golf historian. "Old Tom Morris could put an ad in the paper that said, 'I'll play Willie Park for 500 pounds.'

"Players wanted to win majors to get into exhibitions."

That's not the case any longer. The majors are hallowed ground, the true measure of greatness, the breeding grounds of a rivalry.

Woods vs. Duval was none of the above, nor was it meant to be.

Take their showdown for what it was - an exhibition between two players (IMG clients) who happened to be Nos. 1 and 2 in the world ranking (an IMG creation).

Was it real? Be serious.

Was it a rivalry?

"No, not yet," Woods said.

Was it a good show? The 7.4 overnight rating for ABC Sports seemed to indicate as much, even if the shotmaking was mediocre.

The morning after the du Maurier Classic outside Calgary, one LPGA Tour player referred to the exhibition with a litany of adjectives - ridiculous, stupid, meaningless. She also said she would be watching.

"I can't wait to see it," she said.

Does it have the potential to ruin golf? No more than any other unofficial event.

"My desire is that this brings more people to the game," Duval said. "When Tiger turned pro in '96, golf became cool - not a dorky game. This really is pretty cool."

It was not meant to be anything else. Woods felt no pressure to live up to his No. 1 ranking. Duval knew he couldn't get it back by winning the match.

"Once you get over the feeling that 'This is stupid, this is bad for golf,' now you've got to ask yourself ... why?" Johnston said. "Nobody can say this is bad for golf. Did it keep people from watching the Hartford Open? Is it going to keep people from watching the Buick Classic? If anything, maybe it kept people off the golf course for three hours."

Whether such matches - with such money on the table - will become a regular occurrence is yet to be seen. Would IMG still be interested in staging the event if two of its clients were not the top two players in the world?

One thing is clear - Woods will have to be a part of any match for ratings to make it worth the while. When he won the Memorial the first weekend in June, CBS Sports had a 4.8 rating, the highest for the Memorial since records were first kept 10 years ago.

"If anyone can lead us to the People magazine audience, it's Tiger," Johnston said. "And David Duval has the most credentials this year to challenge him. We look forward to them being part of the future of golf. You're talk about two guys on the upward edge."

While Jack Nicklaus would be the first to agree - at least this year - he has long held that a rivalry will not develop until Woods and Duval start winning a lion's share of the majors.

Until that happens, this wasn't such a bad way to spend a Monday night.

AP