When the average university-aged sports fan turns on the television on a Sunday morning, they expect to see real sports–a little football, a little hockey, maybe even a little track and field. But as it sometimes turns out, the average sports fan is treated to either an exciting horse jumping competition, or a round of PGA golf. For a lot of fans that’s the cue to turn off the TV and go do something useful with their weekends, but one young man is changing that. Thanks to Tiger Woods, more and more young people are wasting their life in front of the tube; the PGA tour has become exciting. The 24-year-old phenom has captured our imagination once again.
Last weekend, Woods won his sixth straight tournament, a feat not accomplished since the legendary Ben Hogan did it way back in 1948. Amazing? Of course. But doing amazing things is nothing new to Tiger. With his win at the Masters in 1997 he lived up to the hype of being golf’s next big thing. Since then, he has been tearing up golf courses all over the world and has captured the imagination of golf fans from Malaysia to L.A.
Thanks to his accomplishments and to the marketing of Nike, Tiger has attracted a whole new generation of fans to golf. Young people and minorities finally see someone they can identify with. A young fan has more in common with Tiger than with any other player on tour. Many university students don’t even know any other names on tour. I mean, how interested can we be in Nick Faldo? (I bet some of you are asking, "Who the hell is Nick Faldo?")
Tiger Woods has really done an amazing thing. At a time when professional sports compete with each other for ratings and TV contracts the PGA has an ace up their sleeve. I’ll bet some of you will tune in to see if he can do it again next week, and chances are he will.