Game has to face up to grim possibility a golden era is over
Boom driven by Woods’ appeal could be ending hrivals say tournaments feel more exciting when Tiger plays
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Golf has shivered in this position before – facing up to a future without Tiger Woods. Yet, although 2010 and 2017 were worrying in the extreme for the sport, this time around the portents feel so much more ominous. In short, the end has never felt nearer.
Eleven years ago, Woods was only 34 and had the clock on his side as he weighed up the task of surviving the ridicule and rust to revive his reputation in the wake of the sex scandal. Four years ago, Woods actually said he was unsure he would ever play again. However, he and we knew that there were other procedures his physicians could try to relieve his crippling back pain.
Yet now, with the prognosis ranging from a nine-month to a two-year recovery time frame, there appears to be no miracle to pull him back from the brink. It is possible he will return, at 45 “if anyone can …” etc – but with the back still playing up, regardless of the catastrophic injuries to his lower right leg, it will take an effort that could even be beyond Woods. The clubhouse is most definitely in sight.
Except, the likelihood is that the post-tiger era had already begun and we had simply not accepted the notion. On Sunday, he appeared down and drowsy in a network interview. No, he did not know if December’s surgery had been a success and no, he was anything but certain that he would be at Augusta in six weeks for another shot at the Masters title he reclaimed so spectacularly, after a 13-year gap, in 2019.
Last year, in the midst of the pandemic, it was overlooked that Woods barely played, even when the sport was out of lockdown, and when he did play it was frankly awful as he failed to record a single top 10 in the last 11 months of the year. On Monday, in the wake of that TV appearance, the great Golfweek columnist Eamon Lynch summed it up perfectly. “Tiger is the Marlon Brando of Superman not of The Godfather; an opportunistic scenestealer when the script falls his way, but no longer capable of shouldering the entire production of the PGA Tour,” he wrote.
We are finally being asked to accept that while Woods still entices and enthralls like no other, his appearances will from hereon be a luxury not a staple. We have been in denial, but now we have to confront the actuality and it screams that, in all probability, that’s it folks.
So, what happens next, as he departs the scene over drawn-out months of speculation? The marketing experts will be quizzed and Steve Martin, the global chief executive of M & C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, gives the insight. “You see the broadcast numbers when Tiger’s on the back nine of the Masters or the Open and it’s absolutely through the roof,” he said. “That’s a one-man machine doing that.
“Yeah, we’ve had gaps, given a snapshot of what it might be like when he’s gone. The figures fell through the floor. And then, when he came back, shot right up again.”
Woods changed everything, quintupling purses and bringing in blue-chip firms. Suddenly, the modern professional became richer by association, although that association on the scoreboard was often humiliating. No matter, when Tiger won they all won.
Woods hauled the game from a niche into the top echelons of sport’s moneymaking divisions. He showed that you could still become super-rich and be a golfer.
The young guns readily admit that when he swings back the saloon
door, the set feels more like Hollywood. “It’s a different atmosphere when Tiger is playing,” Jon Rahm, the world No2, said. “It doesn’t matter if the world’s top 20 are in the event and he is out of the world’s top 50. He’s still the man, still the one they’ve come to see.”
Rahm and Co will have to fill the void and they will have to attempt to do so as a collective. If Woods was Elvis, they have to be the Rolling Stones and with the likes of Rory Mcilroy and divisive characters such as Bryson Dechambeau the essential components are there.
The best news is that Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, last year signed a $700million-ayear deal with the circuit’s media partners. It lasts until 2031. The plug is not about to be suddenly pulled.
The coffers will carry on filling in the forthcoming seasons, Tiger or no Tiger. The contracts are in place. Furthermore, Covid-19 created a boom for recreational golf last summer and the opportunity is there to capitalise further. Yet an era is coming to a close. And Tiger Woods was not any old era.