Golf is hot. It's popular and everyone, it seems, is playing the game. It gets hours of televised coverage every week. It even has a cable channel dedicated to it. From a public-interest standpoint, it's dead.
Tiger is a phenomenon for a variety of reasons.
Sampras is simply a great player who competes in what ranks as a minor professional sport. I would imagine that this area has more golf courses per square mile than any place in the world, which makes it tougher to find the best courses. N.C. I've played only three courses in Myrtle Beach in the last 10 years. Two of them are par-3s, the other is the new TPC at Myrtle Beach, which is really good, extremely challenging and probably overpriced. If any other readers have opinions on where to play in Myrtle, or even where not to play, send them in .