NASSAU, BAHAMAS – The past decade of Tiger Woods’ career has been a series of stops and starts, with the golf world waiting for each comeback before he was gone once again. The promise of another new beginning has brought the group here, patiently waiting for Mercedes-Benz, just as the group has lured other key partners to this part of the Albany golf course.
But then Tiger Woods appeared, seemingly out of thin air. He walked around the corner of the white tent – alone – like he was just on his morning walk and said to the waiting media, “Hey, guys.” This relatively obscure golf tournament in the Caribbean features the world No. 1 player in the field, as do the 2023 PGA Tour champion, two 2023 major winners and the rest of golf’s biggest names. But as always, all the attention focused on the man who is currently ranked 1,328th in the world.
First, when Tiger Woods sat down for his annual press conference to preview the Hero World Challenge — a no-cut, limited-field event he organizes for himself and his PGA Tour buddies — and Tiger Woods’ Discussing the situation, he simply looked as if he is a 15-time major champion. But as the conversation progressed, the reality of the new person became clear to us. Here was Tiger Woods, a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board. Tiger Woods, co-founder of a new golf league. Tiger Woods Investor, restaurateur, course designer. Tiger Woods, the 47-year-old veteran, is stepping up to the beleaguered sport and becoming an official, senior presence.
Woods quipped, “Don’t say senior.” “I’m not there yet. I have a few more years.”
Woods is also a golfer again. And he plans to continue playing for some time, saying his right ankle is strong enough to last him 18 holes without pain after Masters subtalar fusion surgery. He also hinted at playing the event once a month in 2024, which would include all four major events. But on Tuesday, Woods was far less focused on his playing ability and future career, joking, “I’m just as curious as all of you to see what’s going to happen. “I haven’t done that in a while.”
His latest comeback was a secondary story, instead focusing on the future of the PGA Tour and men’s professional golf. He was a politician/executive who spoke with confidence on every PGA Tour issue. He answered questions about the state of Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund with the same conviction as if PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan were saying it. Perhaps more rightly, Monahan used his power three separate times to say that striking a deal with the PIF without players’ input “cannot happen again.”
He cited the players’ need to control their own future, the same need that led players to pressure Monahan to add an additional board seat for the Players and give that seat to Woods. He talked about several “other options” for the PGA Tour to find new funding if a PIF deal does not happen. He answered questions about the new TGL league, which he helped start in response to the team model of PIF-funded rival league LIV.
Woods, one of the most eccentric and ruthless competitors in the history of the game, is now serving as a leading force for change in golf.
Think about the way Woods talks about his body, where he says the pain in his foot and ankle is gone, but it also means he has to put pressure on other parts of his body. Now it reaches his knees or his back.
“The forces have to go somewhere,” he said.
For decades, Tiger Woods focused his attention on becoming the most influential golfer of all time. That golfer is disappearing. The armies had to go somewhere.
In April, two months before the surprise PIF announcement, the lame-duck Woods played a Masters practice round with Tom Kim and Rory McIlroy. Kim, 21, is a sponge for this kind of thing, constantly grilling Woods and McIlroy ahead of his first Augusta National appearance. How do you reach this hole? What does the wind do here?
And Woods replied. He shared trade secrets and nurtured one of golf’s brightest young stars, just as his idols once did for him.
“Hey, I was lucky enough to play with Freddy (Couples) and Raymond (Floyd) my freshman year,” he said with a smile that April day. “And Seve (Ballesteros) and Ollie (Jose Maria Olazabal). That was incredible. And then Jack and Arnold, the par 3 competition with those guys. “That’s what this tournament allows us to do, share knowledge and take knowledge from the past and apply it.”
Woods found himself nostalgic ahead of a major championship, a far cry from his heyday. He shared stories of Floyd giving his advice on a gallery-shot approach to No. 2 (“Well, you shoot it straight at them, and then right before it lands, you yell ‘in front'”). ). He joked about a terrible tee shot in 2005 that set up his iconic chip on the 16th hole. He talked about his son, Charlie, and how he may not be able to watch golf with the same competitive enthusiasm as before, but it still means everything to him. “So the joy,” Woods said, “is different.”
That element can’t be missed with Woods at this point. Maybe he was once so obsessed with greatness that he didn’t have the bandwidth or interest for such things, but now he can see that he’s the guy the entire golf world looks up to, and he’s trying to use that. Has the ability.
Justin Thomas, the current player closest to Woods, said, “It was an honor for Arnold and Jack to pass the torch.” “So I think he’s looking at it because he wants to pass it on to the next generation.”
This is a stage that is often seen in the golf world. Palmer and Nicklaus turned into brands as much as golfers in their later years, and Woods had become the biggest business brand in golf history by his mid-20s. He started the TGR Foundation with his family in early 1996 and has since become a billionaire. Yet Woods’ presence continues to grow. He owns restaurants – The Woods in Jupiter, Florida, miniature golf-dining chain PopStroke and now T-Square Social, an upscale New York City sports bar with Justin Timberlake.
Woods was once the face of the EA Sports golf video game but is now on the cover of PGA Tour 2K23. At the height of the PGA Tour’s war with LIV, his venture capital firm teamed up with Rory McIlroy to launch an indoor TGL team golf league (which was originally scheduled to debut in January but has been delayed to 2025. ). And his TGR design firm has built more than a dozen courses, many of which have hosted PGA Tour events.
“Tiger is deeply involved in every phase of the golf design process from selecting projects to laying out routing to providing shaping direction during construction,” said Brian Bell, longtime friend and president of TGR Design. “He spends a lot of time finalizing golf strategy by locating bunkers and laying out greens during construction.”
But Woods playing these roles isn’t merely symbolic, it’s a name and face guaranteed to sell a product. He’s deeply involved, and that’s almost the point. McIlroy served as the players’ biggest voice in the board room and was also often put in the position of explaining PGA Tour decisions over the past two years. He managed to find success on the course (2022 Tour Championship, two wins this season), but he did so when he was always on call to handle board duties. Monahan then patted McIlroy and the Players on the back for creating the Framework Agreement, in which Monahan and PIF Governor Yasser Al-Rumayyad are attempting to create a joint company with both the PGA Tour and LIV. This led to McIlroy’s desire to step down from the board (Jordan Spieth has replaced him). But Woods doesn’t have the same commitment to playing. He can put himself into it, and put himself into things, that’s what Tiger does.
Spieth said, “I know he doesn’t sleep a lot, but he spends most of his waking hours thinking about how to make the PGA Tour better for players. And he doesn’t have to do that. If “He can ride off into the sunset if he wants. We know that’s not his personality.”
Woods is constantly on the phone, sending emails or hopping on a Zoom call. “I think he definitely takes it very seriously,” Thomas said. “He doesn’t take it lightly.” After the crushing defeat in Rome, Woods was in discussion this fall to captain the United States Ryder Cup team in 2025. Woods doesn’t have time to think about it. “There’s too much at stake on our tour to think about the Ryder Cup right now,” Woods said.
Woods’ attendance at these meetings is overwhelming, reflecting his stature. “He’s not making any moves to make an impact,” Spieth said. “It comes with him when he walks in the door. He’s a listener and has a lot of experience. He has seen the PGA Tour go through many different changes in the nearly 30 years so far. He brings that kind of perspective as well as a way of somehow recognizing what might be good for the PGA Tour and its membership as a whole, even though he’s never been a typical member, but it rubs off on him. Does not happen.
Nonetheless, Woods seems to be energetic, full of purpose. His golf game has not been the focus, as Thursday’s first round was the first time he played even 18 holes since making the cut at the Masters in April but withdrawing midway through the third round. He has no idea who will be his caddy next season and hasn’t even thought much about it. But when the question came about the tour, he jumped in.
So he was asked: Do you enjoy this presence in golf?
“Well, I enjoy the fact that I’m able to make a different impact than just hitting the golf ball. I made an impact on the PGA Tour for many years by hitting the golf ball and doing that. I think I can make a lasting impact by doing what I’m doing, being on the board and being a part of the future of the PGA Tour.”
It features a photo of Charlie Woods and his high school golf team celebrating their recently won Florida state championship, with Charlie, a freshman, finishing T-26 in the individual division. You can see Tiger Woods behind him in the background. He stands there in a puffer vest, holding an umbrella in his right hand. He’s just a father.
He talks about Charlie almost whenever he speaks and says he was able to share a bond with the game of golf, just as he spent long hours with Earl on the Navy golf course. The recovering star carried Charlie’s bag for 54 holes at a junior golf event in early November. Few athletes have ever been as publicly attached to their father as Woods, with the earl coaching Woods so hard as a boy, but then being the first to receive an emotional embrace after those sweet victories. And for better or worse, Charlie’s young golf career is already getting a similar, obsessive kind of attention.
Charlie Woods’ team won @FHSAA State Championship in front of Tiger 🔥🐅
(📸 Palm Beach Post) pic.twitter.com/jk3R9nNB5v– Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) 16 November 2023
Because now Woods is not focused on his achievements. far from it. But they are on her son, and potentially on what her son will attend.
“I’m sure he has some kind of scenario in his mind where he says, ‘Yeah, whatever Charlie wants to do, that’s great.’ But I’m sure he has some dreams in his mind of, ‘Oh, I’d love to have Charlie play here, and then the kids he’s playing with,'” Thomas said. “It’s the bigger picture. I think That as little as he is playing, it is very clear that the decisions he is taking and the thoughts he is taking are not for his own good, it is for the good of the game.
This isn’t about whether Charlie Woods becomes a PGA Tour golfer. It’s about the fact that one of the most focused, compulsively competitive athletes to ever walk this earth, who played one of the most individual sports, has changed his thinking. They don’t seem to be concerned about themselves. He is worried about the game. And history says don’t get in the way of Tiger Woods when he’s concentrating on something.
“I’m pleased with the process and its development,” he said, “but also somewhat disappointed with the slow pace.”
there he is. He is a cat.
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / athletic, Photo: Michael Owens/Getty Images)
