Tiger Woods is the biggest sports star in the world

There are still moments when Tiger Woods does something and makes you forget what year it is, meaning this one.
It happened early Friday evening at the PGA at Whistling Straits, Tiger and the rest of the late starters playing in the fierce winds that came off Lake Michigan and really seemed to come all the way from a bad weather day at the British Open. The wind was blowing and darkness was coming fast and on the second hole, a long par-5, he had hit another wild drive into a National Geographic special.
From there, he was only able to advance the ball about 100 yards.
So he was still 250 yards away from the green.
His ball sitting on a cart path.

And here came one of those moments when you remembered why Woods had a longer run as the biggest sports star in the world than Michael Jordan did before him. You remembered how Woods could routinely make impossible shots seem possible, when so many sports fans only watched golf to watch him.
Woods moved the gallery out of his way. Swung at the ball like he was trying to hit it to the other side of the lake, like he was throwing a punch, hit a big swinging hook that somehow landed a few yards from the second green.
From where he made par. And made that seem routine.
On the next hole Woods could barely see the top of the flagstick from where he was standing underneath the third green. In the high junk again. Not only did he get the ball close enough to make another amazing par, from a lie that should have made spinning the ball seem like a pipe dream, he stopped the ball short of the hole.

This was David Feherty's quiet, perfect response to that on TNT:
"Really?"
Once again, Woods was all over the lot at a major championship, trying to find his swing and his game and himself, and there is no question he has made himself the biggest drama right now in sports, at the PGA Championship or anywhere else.
But if he can't win, does that still make him the biggest star?
Or look at it another way:
If Tiger Woods isn't the biggest star right now, who is?
It was really simple once, even if no torch was officially passed. There was Michael, Michael more than ever once Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were out of the way. Then there was Tiger.

Only now the Year of the Tiger, the year that began on Thanksgiving night, involves porn stars and Perkins waitresses and lost sponsors. And lost magic. And losing. He came back at the Masters and looked like he might win, and faded. He got himself into position at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, and then faded there. Then he finished 23rd at the British Open, at St. Andrews, a course he's always owned.