Rozner: Really, the U.S. Open was boring?
When Michael Jordan took his six titles and six NBA Finals MVPs and headed for the carpool lane, there was grave concern about the future of the NBA.
That was two decades ago and the game has never been more popular or profitable, even without the greatest of all time.
The same narrative has been making the rounds of golf the last few years, with casual observers claiming the PGA Tour could not survive without Tiger Woods, who dominated the game for 15 years like no one before him.
But even without the greatest of all time, the game of golf has never been better.
The story always changes to suit the mood of the day, so over the weekend at Erin Hills the suggestion was that the U.S. Open was boring because the top three players in the world - Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day - missed the cut.
And missed it by a Wisconsin country mile.
But the back nine on Sunday featured a brilliant display of golf from bomber Brooks Koepka, who is as physically imposing and talented as Johnson himself.
So why hasn't the 27-year-old Koepka won more to this point?
The easiest answer is it's golf.
There's probably 50 reasons, but the biggest are that it's pretty flippin' difficult to win a golf tournament and there's probably 50 guys capable of winning in a given week.
Yeah, that's the irony of the Woods conversation.
This will be known as "the Tiger wave," the current crop of players who got into the game because they grew up watching Woods, and it has produced a generation of players who are supremely talented and stunningly matched in their abilities.
Players come from the Web.com Tour and win right away. They come from Europe and win right away. They come from Asia and win right away. They come from the amateur ranks and win right away.
They hit it very far and they are unafraid because - wait for it - there is no Tiger Woods to intimidate the field.
So the U.S. Open was boring?
Eye of the beholder, and such. Some would call this the era of parity, but it can also be argued that this might be the greatest collection of talent ever emerging at one time.
The top 10 in the world features bombers like Johnson and Koepka, close friends who train and play together in Florida.
Japan's Hideki Matsuyama, who made a heck of a run Sunday, is now No. 2 behind only Johnson.
Next come McIlroy, Day and Sergio Garcia, from Australia, Northern Ireland and Spain, and Jordan Spieth, the shortest hitter in the group. He is 23 and has 9 Tour victories.
They are followed by a pair of Swedes, Henrik Stenson - who finally broke through at the Open a year ago after a spectacular duel with Phil Mickelson - and Alex Noren - the most underrated player in the world.
Before Koepka rounds out the top 10 in the Official World Golf Rankings, at No. 9 is 28-year-old Rickie Fowler.
On Sunday he recorded his sixth career top five - all in the last 24 majors. In 2014, he joined Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only players to finish in the top five in all four majors in the same year.
It's only a matter of time before Fowler gets his first major.
In the next 20 are Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Kevin Kisner, Kevin Chappell, Thomas Pieters, Daniel Berger, Si Woo Kim and Bernd Wiesberger.
They are all really good, they are from all over the world, and they are capable of winning any tournament.
Look through the top 100 and you can absolutely make a case for 50 players good enough to win a major, not to mention the weekly tournaments here and overseas.
You can try to scrutinize current form, length, injuries, statistics and course history - or in this case, lack of it - and then you get 5-foot-7, 150-pound Brian Harman almost winning the U.S. Open, when his only victory in the last three years was after he made a 28-footer on 18 to avoid a playoff with Johnson and Rahm at the Wells Fargo a month ago.
Asked after the U.S. Open what he expected coming in, Harman said, "I don't know. I finished last at the Memorial two weeks ago."
That's golf, especially at a time when you can find so many great players worthy of taking home a trophy.
The curse of Tiger Woods is that we will never again see one player destroy a field so many times in a single season.
The current crop of players will tell you the real curse is that the Woods era is responsible for the game being more competitive, entertaining and unpredictable than it has ever been before.
Greatness, as always, is in the eye of the beholder.
brozner@dailyherald.com
• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.