Golf is no different from other sports in its desire for the next big thing. In golf, the next big thing is the last big thing: Tiger Woods.
Woods asked for a few days to absorb the significance of his 15th major championship. Take all the time you need, Tiger. You are not the only one walking on air. The whole of golf is wearing a green jacket this morning, celebrating the lottery win that is the return of Woods to the summit of the game. When Woods wins, everybody banks a cheque.
Over the many troubled episodes in Woods’s recent past, when it seemed he might never recover, players asked to comment would pay tribute to his impact on the game and their careers. Phil Mickelson in particular was effusive in his thanks, reminding the rich young things that playing for a million bucks every week was not a thing before Woods came along. He made them all rich.
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The assumption was that Woods would not be coming back. The game was busy grooming new idols, building statues to the likes of Rory and Jordan, DJ and Ricky, Brooks and JT. They have all had their moments in the post-Tiger age, generating their own unique motifs. As good as they are, they have not been able to stem the slow decline in participation, nor maintain the levels of interest among broadcasters and sponsors.
Remarkable comeback
When Tiger contends, he doesn’t move the needle, he blows it out of the bloody park. Golf can’t believe its luck. When Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said how thankful the Masters was to have him back as champion, he was speaking for every major venue, every tournament at which the Tiger puts a tee in the ground. And to think, nine years ago, Woods received a pep talk in morality from Ridley’s predecessor, Billy Payne, during the chairman’s traditional pre-tournament address. Woods was asked to reflect on his conduct following his infidelity and public fall.
That was before the injuries struck, the four back surgeries, the yips, the rankings decline, the last chance Harley Street saloon, the Florida police mug shot and the viral video of Woods unable to walk a straight line.
Some claim Ben Hogan’s comeback after his near-fatal car accident was more profound. Hogan never had to deal with the moral opprobrium heaped on Woods, never had to walk through blue velvet curtains at the PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra to deliver a mea culpa in front of an assembled audience that included his mother. And, as far as we know, never had to run from an outraged wife wielding a golf club and read about it via global media.
That Woods is back in green 23 months after collapsing at the wheel of his car under the influence of prescription drugs, his face a bloated caricature flashing across the internet, is beyond remarkable. Yet here he is fully restored, a doting role model for single dads, a beacon for all that is good in golf.
Golf back on the map
Sport loves a winner, but not as much as it loves a champion that climbs off the deck. Witness the love for Tyson Fury when he rose from the dead in the 12th round of his heavyweight world title fight against Deontay Wilder last year. Fury was nobody’s idea of a hero until the moment he resisted Wilder’s hammer.
And for those readers who think sport starts and ends with the Premier League, here is a reminder of what’s out there should you be minded to get your heads up. Golf, like cricket, tennis, rugby league and all those other sports fighting for broadcast attention, has its own inherent appeal. Tell me another pursuit that throws so many variables at a climax and invites the leaders to meet such harrowing ends.
Poor Frankie Molinari. Gallows humour was all he had left after dumping his ball, and the lead with it, in the water twice on the back nine. Who knows what lasting damage that might have inflicted. Molinari’s demise triggered a feeding frenzy as golf’s piranha club closed on the prize. Johnson, Koepka, Day, Fowler, Schauffele, Cantlay all had a go but none could resist golf’s returning alpha.
Tiger is back and all of a sudden people are talking about the PGA Championship, golf’s forgotten major. The tournament moved to May this year from August in search of renewal and relevance. Its worries are over. Woods has put it, and golf, back on the map.
