GENERATION TIGER
Young Stars Influenced By Woods Will Be On Display At 2019 Travelers Championship
When Tiger Woods ended an 11-year major championship drought with a seismic win at the Masters, a receiving line formed outside the clubhouse at Augusta National Golf Club that included Brooks Koepka and Bubba Watson — the Travelers Championship’s earliest entrant and its defending champion, respectively. There was a hug on the 18th green from
Tony Finau, who’s also Cromwell-bound.
The 43-year-old Woods’ return to glory captivated the sports world. But on a smaller scale, it was a triumph that delighted his PGA Tour peers — an unthinkable development given the coldness and frequency with which he once vanquished them.
“These are guys who have never really competed against him,” said Jeff Benedict, a Woods biographer from Waterford. “Some of them played against him, but not when he was at the top of his game. And so I think it’s genuine when they say how excited they are and honored they are to be playing against him now. They really do feel that way, because they grew up watching him, or in some cases idolizing him, trying to emulate his commitment to training and exercise and preparation.”
Indeed, this is a different era — for Woods and the sport he revolutionized. During a decade in which the 15-time major champion rarely resembled his dominant former self, a wave of young, hip, athletic players stepped in to fill the void. And those players credit Woods’ influence — as well as their relationship with a previously unapproachable golf god — with helping
them unlock potential that may have been channeled into other pursuits.
They are major-winning millennials and battle-tested Ryder Cup combatants. Weight-room warriors and brand-conscious businessmen. Social media influencers and the stars of goofy viral videos.
They are Generation Tiger. And absent the man himself, they will be prominently on display when the tour makes its annual stop at TPC River Highlands this week.
A devotee-turned-rival
Connecticut golf fans found out in January that Koepka, the tour’s reigning player of the year, was returning to the Travelers Championship. Since then he’s only improved his profile, ascending to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking, and taking the tournament’s reputation as a destination for elite players along for the ride.
“We know all these guys, so we’re already rooting for them,” tournament director Nathan Grube said. “But to see a guy like Brooks in contention at a major, knowing he’s coming here, there’s no way we’re not pulling for him.”
Koepka has the see-ball, crush-ball mentality of a slow-pitch softball player. He favors bicep-hugging polos and peddles low-calorie beer in Super Bowl commercials alongside Marvel superheroes. His breezy bro routine has rankled golf commentators but burnished his mainstream rep.
Appearing on the massively popular Barstool Sports podcast “Pardon My Take” — a phrase that in itself speaks to the sport’s transformation — Koepka engaged in a half-serious summit on how to make it appeal to an even wider audience. Among the proposed tweaks? Shorter rounds.
“Literally I would just make it like 14 or 15 holes, because then you get to go to the 19th hole a little bit quicker,” Koepka told his hosts.
But to those who can offer a more refined assessment of Koepka’s newfound stature, the 29-year-old represents Woods’ reckoning, a devotee-turned-rival rising up from the crop of kids who watched his commercials, played his video games and copied his wardrobe.
Koepka’s win at the PGA Championship — his fourth major title in 23 months — was, aside from a late charge by his pal Dustin Johnson, a Woods-esque, wire-to-wire romp.
“We’re all pretty much playing for second. That seems like it hasn’t been said since Tiger in his heyday,” Luke List said after third-round play concluded at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, N.Y., where, in a nod to Koepka’s Barstool interview, the rowdy Long Island galleries saluted his booming drives by screaming “that’s Gucci, brah!”
Earlier in the week, video surfaced of a pre-teen Koepka practicing in a black Nike cap. Prior to the Masters in April, he admitted that as a junior golfer he once stocked up on mock turtlenecks — a vintage look Woods dusted off before donning the green jacket.
“I remember I definitely went on to
Nike’s website and bought a few of them,” said Koepka, who’s now officially sponsored by the brand. “I probably bought the red one. Everything always comes back into style, right?”
Where the two differ is in their backstory: Woods was a prodigy who set out to break golf’s most hallowed records when there were still Star Wars posters on his wall; Koepka preferred baseball and hockey before a childhood car accident forced him to put contact sports on hold.
There’s common ground in the way both can seem utterly at ease in the pressure-packed environment of a major championship. Woods at his apex would send shivers through press conferences with his unblinking confidence, a trait Koepka has apparently adopted.
“I think sometimes the majors are the easiest ones to win,” Koepka said in May before the PGA Championship. “Half the people shoot themselves out of it, and mentally I know I can beat most of them, and then from there it’s those guys left, who’s going to play good and who can win?
“There’s 156 (players) in the field, so you figure at least 80 of them I’m just going to beat. From there, you figure about half of them won’t play well, so you’re down to maybe 35. And then from 35, some of them just — pressure is going to get to them. It only leaves you with a few more, and you’ve just got to beat those guys.”
Bulldozing barriers
A young person of color expresses an interest in golf, leading his father to obsessively nurture his talents using homespun practice methods that fit the family’s financial constraints.
It should be a familiar tale. But this one belongs to Tony Finau and his father, Kelepi; not Earl and Tiger Woods.