I am pretty sure there are a lot of you that would argue that golf really isn’t a sport and has no reason to be on this site at all, but you can all kiss my but. Golf is a sport that takes unbelievable amounts of focus, consistency, and combination of strength and finesse and deserves its spot on this site as much as your full contact sports do.
But that isn’t what this article is about.
This article is about whats next for the PGA tour. While we await the resurrection of the chosen one, Tiger Woods, to return to the sport, I want to know if you have even considered watching a tournament?
I know I haven’t turned on a PGA tour event in months, but that has a lot to do with the fact that watching golf during the winter just makes me depressed. But I have to admit without the constant coverage of the world’s greatest golfer actually golfing I haven’t so much as given watching a tournament a second thought. He is what draws my attention to the sport. 4 hours of golf coverage doesn’t really get me revved up without the opportunity to see Tiger make a comeback on Sunday or drain a shot from a greenside bunker that shouldn’t have even come out of the sand.
Whether you are tired of the Tiger drama or not you have to admit one fact. Tiger Woods is the PGA tour, and without him they suffer huge losses. Tickets sales are down, TV ratings are down, memorabelia and merchandise sales are down. All these things lead to lower endorsement deals for members of the tour and lower purses for tournaments.
I guess it has its upside too though. More competitive tournaments, more big names playing in small tournaments to get the prize money that they could have scooped up in tournament with previously larger purses, and the opportunity to gets some TV time for your lesser known players, but really how do you pull yourself out from under the shadow of Tiger Woods? Who do you turn to? The drunk John Daily? The ever so stuck up Phil Mickelson? Where is your young talent, and don’t give me that shit about Sergio Garcia, he chokes more often than most porn stars.
Oh and EA who is going to be on your next video game? Is Tiger Woods going to be about laying pipe or laying up?
First of all, lets get one thing straight. Porn stars don’t choke. They are professionals, choking is for amateurs.
Did anyone notice that the first tournament of the season was last weekend? I did, but only because I heard talk of how Tiger wasn’t there and he usually plays that event. It definitely hurts, but golf will go on. It was a professional sport that paid pretty well before Tiger and it will be the same after Tiger. It may lose some appeal to people whose only reason to watch was Tiger, and the purses may be smaller, but most golfers won’t starve. Lots of sports take a hit when the face of the sport retires or takes a leave. Eventually another great will come along and the process will start over.
Not too mention, Tiger will play golf at some point this year. But even if he decides not to and wants to take this year to focus on his family, he will definitely be back next year. I don’t think this is a long term problem for the PGA.
You are right. It is a short term problem. But one that is really going to affect the sport. The thing about other sports are that they are team dominated and no one player has nearly the impact that Tiger will.
Lebron could never play again and yeah Cleveland’s attendance may go down, but it isn’t going to affect the entire league like this will.
Yeah just look at boxing, it isn’t the same after Tyson left. I do have to agree that it will rebound, but it won’t be the same.Tiger will eventually have to leave and when he does who will be the next great star old or new?
Jason, I love the boxing reference. Very similar. Its not just Tyson that affected boxing though. Holyfield, Foreman, Suger Ray. A lot of great boxers that drew fans to the sport left in a very small time period and it hasn’t yet recovered. Boxing is still waiting for its next superstar.
And with the growing popularity of the UFC don’t expect it to happen any time soon.
I hate the UFC. I just don’t get the appeal. What kind of dumbass wants to get his brains beat in like that. I’d rather watch boxing. At least you know the guy you are fighting can only use his fists and can’t butt rape you while you’re on the ground.
Boxing peaked before Tyson at the end of the Ali era. There were a lot of great heavy weight challengers back then that kept the spot afloat. Tyson was the last guy to fight a guy from that era and won. He alone kept the sport afloat a little while longer. When he left that was the end of boxing.
The NBA has suffered loses yearly since Jordan left and hasn’t recovered because most of the young guys went ghetto losing a huge white majority of the fan base. Yeah there’s Kobe (the rapist) Wade and a few others who carry the league but it’s peak was the Dr. J to Bird and Magic and then to Jordan era. Unless one or more of those types of guys comes along and makes the sport pure again it’s rein is over as a top sport.
Golf is now facing the same predicament. It grew from it’s inception to peak decades with Palmer to Nicholas and then Tiger was the pinnacle. He’ll be back eventually to finish his run at the majors record books. Once he’s through though that will end golfs rein and it will slowly slip back to an also ran sport. This year will be a tell tale sign of things to come for the sport after Tiger.
The common theme here? Once a sport doesn’t have that somebody to hand the torch down to it loses it’s luster and fan base/interest and can’t recover to the glory days. The only way that happens is you have to have more than one electrifying superstar at the same time come together to compete against each other, a couple of sport changers. If you get that fan interest will come back in droves.