As I sit
here watching Tiger Woods’ return to professional golf from various back
surgeries, I can’t help but be unable to recall ever being this interested in
professional golf. Ever since the infamous Thanksgiving evening back in 2009, which
seems like an entire lifetime ago, there is no doubt he has been on a
tremendous slide. His overall game mixed with whatever is going on mentally and
the various injuries he’s sustained, things have just been off.
Thinking
back to the early 2000’s you forget how golf was covered. Traditional forms of
media (television and radio only) picked up on all major golf tournaments.
There was no PGA Tour Live, no satellite radio coverage and there surely was no
social media coverage. I bring this up because I have never seen an explosion
of Tweets in regards to golf than I have these last two days. I’m not talking
about generalized tweets about Tiger, I’m talking tweets about every single
shot Tiger hit (More on that in a second.) With all the sustained injuries, the most insight golf fans could grab about Tiger are his infamous blogs posted on his personal website giving updates on his rehab, how his life is going, etc.
I
listened to a number of golf-based podcasts this week and the hosts all came to
a consensus in regards to the aura about Tiger. Sure over the last five seasons
you have the emergence of a new generation of talent. Jordan Spieth in my
opinion is the best golfer in the world, Justin Thomas is right behind him and
Rickie Fowler is the clear cut fan favorite worldwide. On the ‘First Cut’
podcast with Kyle Porter of CBS Sports, he made mention that Tiger today is
more of a ‘YouTube legend’ where this new generation of golfers, especially the
ones born in the year 2000 and beyond will only know Tiger as this mythical
figure. I myself have difficulty recalling watching Tiger the way I’ve watched
Rickie, Jordan and the other guys over the past few seasons. People forget how
competitive Tiger was of course, but they also forget that Tiger wanted no part
of being buddy-buddy with his fellow competitors.
However,
in today’s society where everyone wants an inside look in the world of sports,
politics, etc. They also want to be a voice in those arenas. I hate to bring up
OJ Simpson, but as far as the coverage of his ordeal goes when he was sent to
jail for robbery in Las Vegas, now that he’s a free man he has entered an
entirely different world as far as media goes. Similarities can be said about
Tiger with his latest comeback. There’s going to be pressure, there are going
to be reporters looking for quotes and there will be opinion. I’ll be
interested to see how this comeback plays out, and yes this comeback is
different than the others. You knew he was going to be motivated to play while watching the U.S President's Cup team put an absolute beat down on the international team, and he's even come out and said this week that his goal is to win and to make the current field feel scared and intimidated when he's on the course. I’m watching it first hand, along with millions of
other Tiger fanatics.
That
being said, go Rickie!
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