Unlike other sports, Tiger needs no rivalry to stoke the fire

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Tiger Woods made an early exit from his first event back at the hands of Tim Clark, but Clark -- and other sometime Tiger tamers -- are no rivals for the golf superstar.

Thank goodness Tiger is back this week.

Obviously, having Tiger Woods back at a place like Doral, where he has been dominant, is great for the game. But on a more personal level, it means that we should have a suitable distraction from the fact that North Carolina is probably going to beat Duke for the third time this season at the ACC Tournament in Atlanta. Of course, the ACC is stacked this year, and there is no guarantee both teams will survive long enough to face each other on Sunday.

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Tiger will survive the weekend at the World Golf Championships-CA Championship, though; there is no cut. And if he plays the way he did for the three years leading up to last year, he will probably be in great position to tame the Blue Monster once again. Last year, though, the Monster admittedly got the better of Tiger. The greens had been resurfaced between the 2007 and '08 tournaments, adding some subtleties that discouraged the world's No. 1.

Instead, Geoff Ogilvy went on to claim his second World Golf Championships title. He nabbed his third a couple of weeks ago at the Accenture Match Play Championship -- making him the second most prolific winner of those global events behind what's-his-name. Ogilvy will be one of the favorites this week, and he should be. Of course, when Tiger is in the field, everyone else is considered a challenger. It has been a couple of years since members of the media have used the word rival to describe any of the other players on TOUR. Now they are challengers, as in, who will challenge Tiger?

The simple answer to that question is that we don't know. Anthony Kim, Camilo Villegas, Dustin Johnson and the other young guns are the current fashionable suggestions. The problem is that in the dozen years that Tiger has been dominant, no one has made a consistent challenge. Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh have all exacted their pounds of flesh from the world's No. 1, but hardly on a regular basis. We have been given some great near foils in Rocco Mediate and Bob May, among others. Tim Clark and Nick O'Hern can claim a little Tiger blood as well, but that was in a unique arena, and one that can be dismissed rather easily. Match play, after all, is so finicky.

Considering what great rivalries are and how they are made, perhaps it is time to stop looking for one for Tiger. Great rivalries take time to develop and require not only individual greatness but mutual respect. Ohio State and Michigan may argue that last bit, but neither team's football story would be complete without the other.

By contrast, Tiger's story will not only be complete without a rival, it may be that much more compelling. Gone are the naysayers. Early on, there were echoes from the past suggesting that Tiger wasn't challenged the way those who came before him were. Then we -- and they -- realized that Tiger's rival and challenge was the record books, not individuals. As many of those books as he has rewritten, there are still more to come.

It is easy to wonder what the landscape of Tiger's career would have looked like if Phil, Vijay, Ernie or one of the others had stepped up and stolen a few more majors. On any given week, they have shown that they can push him to his best, but in that crucial category, he has no equal. We know he will be challenged again, too, but the question is whether the onslaught will come from the same camp or a variety of places as it has in the past. Tiger has a lot of years left, if he chooses, while the face of the TOUR is getting younger and younger. There is a 19-year-old from Northern Ireland named Rory McIlroy who plays with the maturity of a veteran but the exuberance of youth. Only time will tell if he is the one.

While other sports need rivalries to perpetuate themselves, we have learned in the Tiger era, that golf does not. Duke is not Duke without Carolina. The Lakers are not the Lakers without the Celtics. Heck, Lehigh isn't even a football school without Lafayette (look it up, the goal posts get ripped down before halftime every year.) But Tiger Woods needs no rival. Challengers are enough.

John Maginnes is a freelance columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PGA TOUR.