Image: golfweek.com Tiger is coming back.
(Maybe.) Let me take a moment to celebrate, properly. YESSSSSSSS!!!!! {Insert fist pump here, along with streamers, glitter, confetti and those fancy little cupcakes you can eat in one bite.} Just the hint that Tiger MAY be back on the course soon elicits that reaction from most golf fans, both die hard and casual. On Wednesday, when Mr. Woods announced his intentions to return to competitive golf later this year, it was like winning the golfing lottery. And that is actually the problem with golf. Without Tiger, golf doesn’t have the same buzz. It doesn’t have the same wide-reaching appeal. And as great as Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and the rest of the game’s young guns are, they aren’t now and never will be as popular and polarizing as Tiger. Golf needs Tiger Woods way more than Tiger Woods needs golf. TW has gotten every drop out of golf that was available to be squeezed from of the game: 14 majors, 79 wins, 10-time PGA player of the year. It’s an unapproachable resume, unless your name is Jack. The game still wants to wring out every last magical ounce of Tiger-mania even if that well has long run dry. It’s very possible that Tiger will come back and struggle to make cuts. He’s 40 with an ailing back and surgery scars all over his body. He may not, and probably won’t ever, be even an average PGA Tour player again. He can’t bomb it like he used to. He could get hurt again. He doesn’t intimidate those aforementioned young guns anymore. We’re all hoping he’s Superman. In reality, he may be more like Clark Kent. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with Clark Kent but when you get accustomed to seeing Superman wearing red on Sundays for nearly two decades, Clark Kent is a bespectacled letdown. If/When Tiger tees it up at the Safeway Open in Napa Valley on October 13-16 it will be a tornado of golf excitement. He simply said he “hopes” to play. I hope he does, too. I also hope there is another Tiger-like talent coming along that can carry the sport for a new generation of fans because Tiger-mania, as we've seen, won't be around much longer.
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June 2018
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