1 TIGER WOODS
An icon and inspiration to millions of golfers, young and old.
Tiger Woods is more than just a great golfer.
He is golf’s greatest ambassador. No one has had a greater impact on your game or the game since he burst onto the scene all those years ago.
He is the PGA Tour. He turned golfers into athletes. He gave Nike the most iconic moment in sports history. He forced the greatest institutions to ‘Tiger-proof’ their golf courses. He broke down barriers by becoming the first Africanamerican to win the Masters. We could go on and on, but above all else, he made golf cool again. He is the single biggest reason why the Saudis want to invest in golf and why they were reportedly prepared to offer in the region of $800 million to get him to defect.
At The 150th Open, people were hanging off fences just to catch a glimpse of the 46-year-old walking up the 18th on the Old Course. The Tiger roar is still unlike anything you will ever hear. And when he speaks, people listen. It would be a stretch to suggest that he saved the PGA Tour, but he stopped other players from leaving by hosting an intervention and presenting a united front.
He remains a flawed genius. The greats often are. But he has transformed golf for his own generation and the generations to follow. Among his many success stories include the TW Foundation, which has reached over two million students and supported more than 260 college scholars through internships and financial support.
He has lent his name to various tournaments and junior programmes, built a fledgling course design business, partnered with Taylormade and Popstroke, to name just two, and delivered 85 TGR Live charity events, raising $113 million for charitable causes.
He was rewarded earlier this year with a long overdue induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame, yet another accolade to go with his 15 Major titles and 107 worldwide wins. He’s still searching for a record-breaking 83rd PGA Tour victory to move him ahead of Sam Snead on the all-time list, but we wouldn’t rule it out. He’s done it before on one leg.
Following his untimely injury last year, he’s become the face and Director of the 2K Sports’ golf video game franchise and broadened his empire by co-founding TMRW Sports with Rory Mcilroy, which is bringing a virtual golf league called TGL to Monday nights in 2024 to shake up the sport again. An incredible array of celebrities – including Justin Timberlake, Serena Williams, Lewis Hamilton and Steph Curry – have already bought into the venture, which shows what kind of pull Tiger still has.
His commitment to leaving golf and sport in a better place than he found it is commendable and befitting of his status as the most influential person on our list. He remains golf’s greatest needle mover, and you don’t need the Player Impact Program to tell you that.
I had this burning desire to be able to express myself in this game of golf. One of the things that Dad had instilled in me is that he grew up in an era, same era as Charlie Sifford and why my son is named after Charlie, is that you had to be twice as good to be given half a chance. So train hard, fight easy. I made practising so difficult, hurt so much, because I wanted to make sure that I was ready come game time. I hit thousands of balls, hands bleeding, aching, just so that I could play in a tournament.