Has Tiger Woods been good for the game of golf?

[Rory Connaughton]

Tiger has been terrific for golf in many many respects most of them commercial.  To follow up with Jim Sullivan's analysis, I do not think that Tiger can be blamed because so many decided to develop CCFAD's in an effort to parlay his personal popularity into profits.  they took their chances and they failed to consider that, as with the tennis boom in the 70's, many new and casual players would abandon the game once the novelty wore off because it is damn hard, requires enormous commitment to become even marginally competent, and takes a long time to play.  Tiger has also been terrific for golf in the sense that he has raised the sport's profile significantly and has given golf fans some amazing moments that will live on as major moments in history as long as anyone cares.

There was certainly a period of irrational exuberance for the first few years he was on the scene (witness the number of junior golfers in 1999 vs. 2007 above) and he cannot be credited with a long term impact on the number of people playing but so what?  He didn't drive players away either. Golf is just a peculiar game that requires an awful lot of dedicated participants. Most people do not have the desire to give what it takes in terms of time away from home, money, practice, humiliation etc.

[J_ Crisham]

Was MJ good for basketball?

Kyle,  He was for those of us in Chicago- Cleveland not so good.               Jack

[noonan]

On the whole, Tiger has been bad for the game. In no particular order:

1.  He brought the cheater line mainstream. Now, it's everywhere. That costs us all 20 minutes a round and as we all know, time is money.

2. He forced tens of thousands of parents to have to explain to their children what a porn star is. There is a special place in hell for people whose actions directly or indirectly take innocence away from children.  It's right next to cheater line users.

3. What he did by winning the Masters was a giant positive for society. Plus, he's a joy to watch from a pure golf standpoint.  I'll grant that...at least until he swears up a storm, throws clubs and scowls at his fans...

4.  He's sucked ONE BILLION out of the economy, money that I dare say could have been used for something more productive than private plane trips to Vegas to fornicate with porn skanks.

5. By virtue of his fraud, he made golf a profit center.  By definition, this made golf less of an honorable game. There are a finite number of motivations for any endeavour. By increasing one, all others are diminished. He drew countless profiteers to a game that had not previously been a profiteer's pursuit. In short, he created a bubble. And history shows that we all pay the price for that.

 

My 14 year old son quizzed me at different times all weekend about Tiger and what he did.

It was unsettling to think my son had to sort this out at his age.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Yes and will continue to be

[John_Conley]

I have said for over ten years that golf lags tennis by 20 years.  The growth, leveling, and drop in participants matches.

Tiger's golf has been good for Tiger.  For the sport?  People can say yes or no and justify it however they want and they'll be right.

This much has been obvious for a decade - there was no Tiger Effect with tons of new participants.  While there may have been some trial, there weren't waves added to the 'core'.

[Jordan Wall]

Yes and will continue to be

Absolutely.

Tiger Woods has been great for the game of golf.

Just like Kobe has been and continues to be great for basketball, Tiger will get past his recent personal problems and be the leader in golf.

Tiger Woods is not a bad person, he has just made mistakes.  Unfortunately for him, his mastakes are reported to evryone in the world to make him look like a d-bag.  Anyone who cannot understand that Tiger has just made some mistakes and instead thinks he is a bad person, needs to evaluate themselves and understand Tiger is not the only one who isn't perfect.

All the best to Tiger, his family, and the rejuvanation of Tiger coming back to golf.

Cheers,
Jordan

[Kevin_Reilly]

Hopefully Tiger was seeing that Canadian doctor purely for legitimate reasons.  Hopefully.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

I think you'd have to ask the kids of today if he's been good for the game. Do they all want to be Tiger Woods when they're out chipping and putting on the practice area? Does he generate the same type of interest on the course as other great golfers of the past did, or is it just a commercial circus?

If I can make a comparison with Ballesteros. When I was young all the children wanted to be Seve. He had charm, good looks, charisma, a controlled temper, flamboyance, unpredictability, and was a golfing genius. My whole family would be glued to the TV, hoping to get a glimse of him. Watching him in the Ryder Cup was as good as it got. When I first went to the Irish Open at Royal Dublin in 1982 (or was it 83?), Seve was in the field. I waited at the putting green for what seemed like hours, so that I could get his autograph. When he arrived just before his tee off time, he looked like a star. I remember him in his colourful slacks and his tanned complexion. He was like a god to me. I managed to get his autograph and afterwards, I couldn't stop thinking about the note book and pen I had in my hand. Seve had touched this pen and note book; this was his autograph.

Does Tiger Woods generate those feeling of emotion in the children of today? I don't know.

All the commercial nonsense means nothing to me and I'm not sure if it has benefitted the game.

Dónal.   

[JC Jones]

Well put KBM, thanks.

[PThomas]

has anyone ever dragged the game to these depths before?

another "role model" bites the dust....

[Eric_Terhorst]

2. He forced tens of thousands of parents to have to explain to their children what a porn star is.
  

David, can you please stop with this nonsense?  If you do a search on the exact term "porn star" in the Chicago Tribune archives from 1/1/85 to November 20, 2009 (before the Tiger scandal broke out), you'll find there were 571 articles containing that term in a so-called "family newspaper."  GMAFB already.  Parents who allow their children unfettered access to the Chicago Tribune   had a lot of explaining to do long before Tiger's woes started.

Re Tiger's impact on the game, I second KBM's comments.

Why don't we all agree that KBM's well-reasoned comments can serve as the final word on the matter and STOP ALL FUTURE TIGER THREADS---thanks!

[JC Jones]

2. He forced tens of thousands of parents to have to explain to their children what a porn star is.
 

David, can you please stop with this nonsense?  If you do a search on the exact term "porn star" in the Chicago Tribune archives from 1/1/85 to November 20, 2009 (before the Tiger scandal broke out), you'll find there were 571 articles containing that term in a so-called "family newspaper."  GMAFB already.  Parents who allow their children unfettered access to the Chicago Tribune  had a lot of explaining to do long before Tiger's woes started.

Re Tiger's impact on the game, I second KBM's comments.

What child reads the Chicago Tribune?  Seriously, I dont think I read anything but the sports section in a newspaper until I was in my 20s, and I dont think I started reading the sports section until I was in high school (when I was well aware what a porn star was).

[JC Jones]

has anyone ever dragged the game to these depths before?

another "role model" bites the dust....

JC,

You could take Paul’s comments as the basis for asking is Tiger now bad for the game. Has he sullied the game? How many people will stop playing the game, how many people will feel sleazy the next time they step on the course, how many people will drive by their local course and sneer at the people playing there, how many parents will prevent their kids from playing the sport because of this? None, zero, no impact.

I agree 100%.  I don't think it will take people away from the game.  But my question was more geared towards bringing new people to the game and whether Tiger contributed to that over the course of the last 15 years.  Which is necessary to sustain the number of golf courses that were built when perceived demand outpaced actual demand. 

By the way, my question wasn't intended to be loaded and I apologize if it came across that way.  I am seriously engaging in some mental gymnastics over this. 

[PThomas]

has anyone ever dragged the game to these depths before?

another "role model" bites the dust....

JC,

You could take Paul’s comments as the basis for asking is Tiger now bad for the game. Has he sullied the game? How many people will stop playing the game, how many people will feel sleazy the next time they step on the course, how many people will drive by their local course and sneer at the people playing there, how many parents will prevent their kids from playing the sport because of this? None, zero, no impact.

I agree 100%.  I don't think it will take people away from the game.  But my question was more geared towards bringing new people to the game and whether Tiger contributed to that over the course of the last 15 years.  Which is necessary to sustain the number of golf courses that were built when perceived demand outpaced actual demand. 

By the way, my question wasn't intended to be loaded and I apologize if it came across that way.  I am seriously engaging in some mental gymnastics over this. 

good points Kelly

its just so sad/bad that golf, which generally has always been seem as a classier sport than (most) others, now finds itself the subject of such tawdry stuff because of the pathetic behavior of its biggest star

the game is bigger than Tiger, and it will survive..but the game has not grown in number of participants because of Tiger, and his garbage certainly wont help it grow , i would think

i just cannot understand how he could apparently chase so many women for so long and leave behind so much evidence...and not think he would get caught...or did he not care that he might get caught, or not think it would be this bad, or.....

what an idiot

[Dan_Callahan]

From USAToday:

Tiger Woods' popularity is plummeting by record amounts, according to the latest results of the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.
Woods admitted to "infidelity" Friday. His "favorable" rating dropped to 33% in the latest poll conducted this week vs. 85% from his last poll in June 2005. His "unfavorable" rating, meanwhile, surged to 57% from only 8% four years ago.

Woods posted the highest popularity rating in poll history — 88% — when Gallup first measured him in 2000. The 52-point swing is the largest drop between consecutive measurements since Gallup began tracking it in 1992, says Jeffrey Jones, managing editor of the Gallup Poll. The 55-point falloff from his high to low point matches that of President George W. Bush from 2001-2008.


I don't see how it can be good for golf to have the most popular athlete on the planet, and the most dominant figure that the Tour has ever seen, see his popularity take this big of a hit. Maybe it will make it that much more amazing when he bounces back in a year or two, but in the short term his "indiscretions" are going to hurt more than just his family.

The poll also makes me wonder what the hell Phil Knight is smoking to say that at the end of his career, Tiger's affairs will just be a "minor blip."

[Kalen Braley]

Jordan,

Its hard to know if someone is or isn't a good or bad person on the exterior.  As for me, I go with Racheal Dawes' quote from Batman Begins when she saw Bruce prancing around town with some floosy skanks.  She said:

Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you.

Tiger may be a "good guy"....but what he does is how he'll be known!!

[Jud_T]

All I know is if he's in contention on Sunday in his first tournament back, the ratings are going to be NFL good....

[Phil McDade]

"In terms of growing the game I would say anyone on this board who has children that do not play the game, and anyone on this board who did not take the time to introduce the game to their kids, who rather left home every weekend to play with their buddies, they are the biggest failures and they have betrayed the game."

Kelly:

A tangent to this thread, yes, but I'd have to disagree with their statement. I play golf, less than I used to, but still play it, and I don't feel I've betrayed the game by not "introducing" my kids to it.

I think it's important for parents to introduce their children to sporting activities, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to encourage healthy and active lives. Competitive sports, properly taught, supervised and coached, can teach children a lot of things, and instill a lot of good values -- as probably everyone on this board can attest. As the parents of three pretty active boys, my wife and I value the time our children spend on sporting activities, but we really could care less if it's golf, swimming, soccer, tennis or running. And I have to disagree with those -- at attitude you occasionally come across on this board -- who view golf as uniquely able to teach certain values about fairness and self-discipline. I think many sports are capable of this. Actually, I think parents and coaches do most of it, with sports re-inforcing the importance of those values.

[Jud_T]

Phil,

Excellent point.  I feel the pull with my kids.  While I have a clearcut bias towards golf I have to fight the tendancy to favor it over other sports when it comes to my kids...

[Craig Sweet]

Other than increasing viewership, and interest in the PGA Tour.....especially amongst non golfers....and increasing purses and sponsor involvement with the tour...I do not think Tiger has had any impact on "the game"...however, I do believe he has been GOOD for the game for the reasons I listed.

[Richard Choi]

If any of you think this is the first time kids heard of "porn star" in the age of the Internet, I think you seriously need to reassess how engaged you are with your kids.

[Jud_T]

Craig,

What about when ANGC hastily "Tigerproofed" the layout after he dismantled the course and the field?  Was that good or bad?

[Phil McDade]

"In terms of growing the game I would say anyone on this board who has children that do not play the game, and anyone on this board who did not take the time to introduce the game to their kids, who rather left home every weekend to play with their buddies, they are the biggest failures and they have betrayed the game."

Kelly:

A tangent to this thread, yes, but I'd have to disagree with their statement. I play golf, less than I used to, but still play it, and I don't feel I've betrayed the game by not "introducing" my kids to it.

I think it's important for parents to introduce their children to sporting activities, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to encourage healthy and active lives. Competitive sports, properly taught, supervised and coached, can teach children a lot of things, and instill a lot of good values -- as probably everyone on this board can attest. As the parents of three pretty active boys, my wife and I value the time our children spend on sporting activities, but we really could care less if it's golf, swimming, soccer, tennis or running. And I have to disagree with those -- at attitude you occasionally come across on this board -- who view golf as uniquely able to teach certain values about fairness and self-discipline. I think many sports are capable of this. Actually, I think parents and coaches do most of it, with sports re-inforcing the importance of those values.

Phil,

If someone states they are concerned about growing the game and do not introduce their kids to the game then I think they have betrayed the game, and should recuse themselves from debating the issue because their actions don’t match their concerns.

I think golf is unique among most sports regarding what it can teach kids. It certainly has more diverse attributes as compared to swimming, soccer, and tennis. It has more interesting qualities as compared to the other sports starting with the venue within which it is played. From a competition standpoint, it requires more confidence and perseverance than a team sport. It certainly teaches better values than football, soccer, basketball, etc. If your kid is going to succeed at any sport, or even at school, you have to push them, challenge them, and guide them. I would rather do that with a sport that I am familiar with and understand, I think the supervision and guidance is more meaningful and real if the parent is thoroughly familiar with the sport.

Kelly:

That's all fine and good, but let's not pretend golf is in any way as demanding a sport as, say, swimming. You're welcome to join my 17-year-old son at 5:30 in the morning when he heads off to swim another 5,000 yards (the first of his two practices a day) if you think otherwise.

[Kalen Braley]

If any of you think this is the first time kids heard of "porn star" in the age of the Internet, I think you seriously need to reassess how engaged you are with your kids.

Richard, that statement reflects either a lot of nerve or very little knowledge on your part.  Perhaps you didn't consider the fact that a lot of parents stay actively engaged in keeping their kids involved in wholesome activities and away from the filth on the Internet.  I think you need to seriously reassess the practice of making statements about things you know nothing of.

Shiv,

While I agree that some parents activly monitor every last thing thier kids do at home, I would agree with Richard that the vast majority do not.  Additionally you can't control the conversations your kids have while at school, much less who they hang out with at school.  So even if they don't get that info at home, I can guarantee they are exposed to it in some way away from the home whether it be school, soccer practice, hanging out with friends at sleepovers, etc, etc.

I know you like to beleive you are the complete master of your domain, but you can't control everything your kids see 24/7 unless ur going to lock them in the house and home school them.  Quite frankly I'm a little surprised that you would be naive enough to think your kids are 100% shielded from this kind of stuff.

[K. Krahenbuhl]

If any of you think this is the first time kids heard of "porn star" in the age of the Internet, I think you seriously need to reassess how engaged you are with your kids.

Richard, that statement reflects either a lot of nerve or very little knowledge on your part.  Perhaps you didn't consider the fact that a lot of parents stay actively engaged in keeping their kids involved in wholesome activities and away from the filth on the Internet.  I think you need to seriously reassess the practice of making statements about things you know nothing of.  By the way, if anything else needs reassessment, it's not parents' engagement with their kids;  rather, it's the extent of the outside world's engagement with their kids.  

I wouldn't have said it at all like Richard...but if a kid is old enough that they read the paper they likely have a pretty good grasp on what a porn star is exactly because of the 'outside world' as you said.