I find myself wanting to comment on Tiger woods today. As news came to light of his 10,000th back surgery this week, my friends are all saying he is done and washed up. Maybe he has seen his last win on the tour, maybe he will never play again, but let’s not forget what he did before Perkins waitresses.
As a kid, I never watched golf….. until Tiger. The man single handedly changed the sport of golf forever. He took golf from a boring game to an electrifying one. He made millions of people actually watch hours of mind numbing tv every weekend. He made completely unknown tournaments into household names just by playing in them. He turned an old mans game into an entertainment sport in a few years. Speaking for myself here (but I have a suspission this is the for a large percentage of golf fans my age), I didn’t even know who he golf legends were until Tiger got me into golf. When I ask guys my age who the best golfer of all time is, I hear only a few names generally; Tiger, jack, and Arnold. Where I ask them when they started watching golf the answer is almost always the same : when Tiger started playing. Yes, that happened to be right when my generation was old enough to become a fan of any sport or player, but still Tiger drove a lot of that. I wouldn’t have known Jacks 18 major record, or Sam Sneads win record if it wasn’t for Tiger trying to break them!
Outside of actually playing the sport, Tiger literally carried Nike golf. And turned golf equipment and apparel into the booming industry it is today. Everyone wanted what Tiger had from clothes to clubs to balls.
Rather than talking about how Tiger is done and washed up, I’m changing the conversation to what it should be, talking about what he did for the sport. It can be debated if Tiger is the greatest to ever play the game, personally I think he is, but that is for another time. It can be debated if he had the most dominant stretch of golf ever to be played. It can be debated whether he will ever play or win again. BUT, what I do not think can be debated is this: Golf would not be what it is today without Tiger, put another way, Tiger is the most influential man to ever play golf.
As always, I’ll Brb.
As a note, this can also all be summarized by Robin Williams stand up but on golf, linked here.






