Why the PGA Tour needs Tiger

[walk18]

I don't miss him at all, and if he never plays again, that will be all right, too. What needs to happen if for the rest of the touring pros to develop a personality for us to identify with so we'll stay interested in watching. I mean Geoff Ogilvie is an outstanding golfer, but a dreadfully dull man. Stewart Cink? Steve Stricker? Dull, dull, dull. Padraig is fun to listen to, I expect to hear him any second ask where he can find his Lucky Charms. But really. Golf on TV isn't really that interesting. What makes it fun is when the contest is between people who made you be interested in them. The entire Tour is riding on Tiger's coattails and collecting big paychecks for just being around. Sports is entertainment! Sports is show biz! Some of these guys have to start showing a little pizazz.

What do you want those guys to do to be less dull, cartwheels in the fairway?

Great golf is good enough for me, I don't need fistpumps and celebrations always.

[colin007]

tiger woods is dead sexy and i cannot wait for him to come back.

[The Recreational Golfer]

What do you want those guys to do to be less dull, cartwheels in the fairway?

Regarding the fist pumps, neither do I. See: Tiger Woods. All I want is golfers with personality, a shtick, that makes us get interested in them and makes it fun to watch them play. See Lee Trevino, Doug Sanders, Greg Norman, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player. Ask someone who their favorite golfer is, not counting Tiger Woods, and you'll probably hear, "I don't know."

Right now we only have a bunch of interchangeable technicians. Can you think of a better sleeping potion that watching an interview with Steve Stricker, Retief Goosen, or Tim Clark? Ben Crane? If Angel Cabrera spoke English, that's what I'm talking about. If Rocco Mediate had won the U.S. Open and a few more tournaments, that's what I'm talking about.

[wkdspd]

What do you want those guys to do to be less dull, cartwheels in the fairway?

sometimes, yeah, thats exactly what we want... take a quick flashback to the pivotal scene in Jerry Maguire (I know, I know). Cuba's character is one of the best players in the game, everybody knows it, but he cant even get a decent contract with his home team because (basically) he's boring, and that doesnt sell. so Cuba pulls off a ridiculously good play, and instead of acting like it was nothing, he celebrates - the crowd goes nuts because they want to celebrate with him, and the team is able to package that up for what he's worth.

Everybody knows tiger is good, throughout every post of every side of every one of these Tiger threads no one has argued his abilities. And yes, many of us like to watch him play because he's good. But just playing well and acting like it was nothing isn't making people tiger fans, playing well and then celebrating like it actually means something is what makes us Tiger fans. And THAT is what sells. You get the rest of the talent in the field (and there's a lot of it) to get excited out there and make it look like it means something, and they'll start to draw more attention as well. Cartwheels arent necessary, but excitement is... tipping your hat and walking off after a 48 ft birdie drop is very cordial and respectful - add a fistpump and a big "YES!" to it, and people take notice, it becomes real, it becomes EXCITING... throw in the emotion tied to all this talent we have out there and the game will live on without Tiger, without it, it goes back to being a fun to play, but relatively low rated Sunday afternoon sport.

[olkev]

But, did you hear what Dan Jenkins said about Tiger?


What set Jenkins off, evidently, is when Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg, referred to his client as a "kid." As in, the media should "give the kid a break." Key excerpt:

"Kid?

"Kids flew B-17s in daylight bombing raids over Germany in World War II. Kids fought in Korea and Vietnam. Kids are serving today in Iraq and Afghanistan so Tiger Woods can live in a world where he can win 14 majors and match that number, the last time I counted, with 14 casting couches, most of them reserved for blondes."

Hoo boy. Here we go.

"Kid?

Tiger Woods was a month away from 34 years of age when his debutantes began turning up in the news. He was a grown man with a wife and two children. Well, we supposed he had a wife, but that was before we learned she was only an ornament.

... Now excuse me a moment while I try to envision Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus playing video games and eating Fruit Loops while they try to deal with a career problem.

Of course, Hogan, Palmer and Nicklaus never set themselves up to become future statues in Central Park.

They never pretended to be the All-American Daddy-Pop Father of the Year Who Also Wins Golf Tournaments.

They never sold themselves as the greatest Family Values brand ever, and conquered the marketplace with it, shamelessly scooping up hundreds of millions of dollars while saying, "My family will always come first."

They were never what Tiger allowed himself to become from the start: spoiled, pampered, hidden, guarded, orchestrated and entitled.

I'll tell you what Hogan, Palmer and Nicklaus were at their peak. They were every bit as popular as Tiger, they endured similar demands on their time, but they handled it courteously, often with ease and enjoyment.

They were accessible, likable, knowable, conversant, as gracious in loss as they were in victory, and, above all, amazingly helpful to those of us in the print lodge who covered them.

That was their brand. All the things Tiger never was.

And now, the capper:

Never in my knowledge of history has any famous personality -- in sports, show biz, or politics -- ever fallen so far so fast. Tiger Woods is graveyard dead, as the Southern expression goes.

Life as Tiger has known it is over. His reputation is ruined, possibly forever. His name that once meant mastery over competitive golf now invokes cringes, giggles and all the Internet jokes you want to pass along."



That's what it's like being deconstructed by a master; something that makes one take pause and think that, yeah, Tiger's image is going to need major reconstructive surgery after all. It's not a problem that a month at Gentle Path and a take-no-questions press gathering is going to fix. Tiger's burden now is not only to fix himself, but to "win the crowd." That's not going to be easy with a majority of the public who now knows him only for his celebrity, and not his talent. Winning back golf fans will be easy. But most people aren't golf fans, believe it or not. This "kid" has an enormous mountain to climb.

Dan Jenkins (born December 2, 1929) is an American author and sportswriter, most notably for Sports Illustrated. He's seen and written about them all and was friends with and played golf with Hogan.