“I guess, `Hello, world.’ ”
On Aug. 28, 1996, a somewhat uneasy Tiger Woods stepped to a microphone in Milwaukee and introduced himself with those words.
It seemed a charmingly quaint way for golf’s most anticipated hotshot in generations to launch his pro career. It soon came to light that the phrase was a plant - the slogan for a huge advertising campaign.
Even for someone of Tiger Woods’ vast promise, the world seemed an ambitious reach.
Ten years later, the stripes across golf’s landscape are unmistakable.
On the course: 12 major championships and 52 PGA Tour titles after Sunday’s WGC Bridgestone Invitational triumph, putting two of golf’s most cherished records in range at age 30. Two full sets of Grand Slam trophies, at least 30 PGA Tour records, $75 million in earnings.
Beyond his own excellence, Woods’ performance has raised the bar on the overall product as his rivals strive to keep up. “He’s pushed me to work harder and get better,” said Phil Mickelson, No. 2 in the world rankings.
GREAT GAINS
At the bank: The PGA Tour’s prize pool stands at more than $257 million this year, more than triple its 1996 level. Next year kicks in a new TV deal that will pay the tour some $3 billion over six years.
In the public eye: A recent Harris poll declared a golfer - Woods - to be America’s favorite athlete. Not only does he resonate with corporate America, he has exposed the game to more than a half-million youth who opted to give the once-elitist pastime a try.
It’s Tiger’s World, all right.
“We’ve never seen an athlete that’s done so much for his sport - and maybe never will again,” said Rick Horrow, a Palm Beach-based consultant and sports-business analyst for CNN and CNBC.
Strong words, considering Babe Ruth saved baseball and Michael Jordan turned basketball into a global pursuit.
“He’s impacted the whole golf industry,” said Charlie DeLucca, president of The First Tee Miami/Dade Amateur Golf Association.
“He’s impacted the game in the design of golf courses. He’s impacted the game on tour. But he’s also impacted the game by bringing it to kids and families. . . . I can’t say enough about what he’s done.”
Said Florida International golf coach Joe Vogel: “He’s made golf cool now.”
For his part, Woods publicly shies from any sort of big-picture analysis of his influence. Asked to sum up his first 10 years, he called them simply “a dream come true.”
“I didn’t think that in my wildest dreams I could actually have achieved what I’ve achieved so far,” he said. “I’ve been very lucky.”
WELL-TIMED ENTRY
Ten years ago, golf was bemoaning a perception that it had no superstars.
Age had caught up with Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson. Greg Norman had power and sizzle, but a saga of major flops. Nick Faldo won majors, but was either boring or boorish. Fred Couples had the tools, betrayed by a bad back.
Enter Woods, fresh off his third straight U.S. Amateur crown.
“He came along at the perfect time, no doubt about it,” said Nick Price, winner of three majors.
Woods insists to this day all he wanted to do in 1996 was make enough money through exemptions to earn his PGA Tour card and avoid the pressure cooker of qualifying school.
Within seven weeks, Woods had won at Las Vegas and Disney. Six months later, he seized the Masters by a record 12-shot margin.
Suddenly, all this blastoff lacked was a vapor trail.
“It’s not often that you get all this pre-professional hype going into a career,” Price said. “And then the guy excels beyond even the hype the media were writing about.”
And that was just the opening act. Eleven more majors have followed, seven during an amazing 1999-02 run that reached its apex with the wraparound Grand Slam.
As CBS analyst David Feherty once said: “He took all the highlight reels we had in our mind’s eye and replaced them with one of his own.”
Opponents, once dubious that Woods could duplicate his amateur success in the pros, suddenly were being forced to answer why they were getting boatraced.
“It was scary, unbelievable,” Chris DiMarco said.
Keep in mind, too, that Woods accomplished it all while twice overhauling his swing. Work with Butch Harmon fueled that 1999-02 run, and changes made under Hank Haney have given him the past two majors.
“From our perspective,” U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy said, “it was almost like, `What are you doing? How good were you in `99 to 2002? Why is that boring? Why is that not good enough?’ ”
Ogilvy paused a second, then confessed his own guilty pleasure.
“He’s fun to watch play when he’s like that,” the Aussie said.
OPPONENTS CASH IN
The rest of the PGA Tour has cashed in on Woods’ success, too.
As fans latched onto the young wunderkind, golf suddenly became a hot property.
From Woods’ 1997 Masters triumph until a recent leveling off, the PGA Tour joined NASCAR as the only properties to show improved TV ratings every year. Sponsors were drawn to the tour’s wealthy demographics.
In 1996, the tour offered $70.7 million in total prize money. When the next TV contract took effect three years later, purses nearly doubled to $134.9 million. Another doubling should be achieved next year.
“It’s been beneficial for every player out here, myself included,” said Mickelson, also No. 2 in off-course earnings. “I thank him every chance I get.”
More stark numbers: In 1996 nine players pocketed at least $1 million in winnings. Last year, there were 78.
“There’s one obvious reason for that, and it’s Tiger,” Jupiter pro Dudley Hart, a 15-year tour veteran, said during this year’s Doral stop. A year ago, $1.05 million in earnings got him a mere 71st on the money list.
And next year, the PGA Tour will debut its FedEx Cup series. Based largely on NASCAR’s season-long points race, it creates a four-week “playoff” to end the tour’s primary season.
At the end of that rainbow: a $10 million bonus pool.
“Tiger has unwittingly or not created an environment that’s made it much easier for rivals to thrive,” Horrow said.
“He’s made his fellow competitors fat and happy by putting a quarter-billion dollars in prize money on the table. He can relentlessly beat them to a pulp, and it matters less than it did 10 years ago.”
BREAKING BARRIERS
Just six years before Woods’ debut, golf was in the midst of a firestorm over high-profile clubs whose membership excluded blacks and other minorities.
The 1990 PGA faced a likelihood of pickets until Shoal Creek Country Club in Alabama admitted a black member. The PGA Tour and LPGA quickly drew up nondiscrimination policies.
Woods’ popularity, though, has achieved what policy could not. It has helped lower two stereotypes: that golf was an elitist sport, and that minorities couldn’t excel.
“He helped popularize golf in places where it wasn’t popular before,” said Richard Lapchick, head of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
“Not just in communities of color, but where people didn’t seem to have access to be able to play. There’s been an enormous impact.”
According to a 2004 Indiana University study, golf saw a typical annual increase in participants of around 1 percent before 1996. Seven years later, that increase was 5 percent.
In 1997 came The First Tee, a PGA Tour-backed program to bring golf to youngsters of all races. The program now has 257 chapters in 47 states, exposing a reported 675,000 young people to the game.
Golf is accepted,” said DeLucca, whose DAGA program was granted First Tee status in 2003. “Ten years ago when you played golf, you were considered a dork. Today when you play golf, other kids look up to you.”
Kids also have been quick to copy Woods’ mannerisms, from the fist pump to the knuckle bump to a fashion statement in red.
“My college girls say we need something red for the last day - and those aren’t our colors,” said Vogel, who came to FIU from the South Florida Junior Golf Foundation he founded five years ago.
Hello, world.
All in just 10 years. Who knows what the next decade will bring?
Records, certainly. Only a debilitating injury is likely to keep Woods from surpassing Jack Nicklaus’ 18 majors and Sam Snead’s 82 PGA Tour wins. And most analysts figure he will be worth $1 billion before he turns 40.
Off the course, the first wave of “Tiger boom” golfers will have passed through college. Some might even earn their tour cards.
Price, for one, will enjoy the view from the Champions Tour - and not because he won’t have to face Woods anymore. A staunch advocate of golf’s legacy, he sees the next generation in good hands.
“You’re always a little apprehensive when you see someone come along who takes the reins of the game,” Price said.
“Well, it’s on a good pair of shoulders there.”
Source: mercurynews.com