I watched Tiger’s press conference with interest. I wasn’t there but I know the scene. The room is small and Woods knows the scribes. It’s his tournament and, basically, beyond the tent, his field. All the players go out of their way to kiss his ring (not that he likes that, because he doesn’t). Still, you can see it: clubhouse chit-chat, driving range questions, greenside Golf Channel interviews. They’re all (all 20 of ’em) on a resort course in the Bahamas, no heavy lifting required, and Tiger picks his first-round playing partner. JT, dude, get on in here for this snap. Talk about home games, comfort zones, uncontested layups.
Tigre, Tigre, El Rey, El Rey.
Golf’s a mess right now and it’s begging for leadership. OK, not golf. Golf’s great. But a meaningful sliver of it, men’s elite professional golf is messy, messy, messy.
Over the years, a small number of its high priests have made golf meaningful to various and large populations, and I know you’re in the web as am I. Some priests: Walter Hagen, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tony Jacklin, Tom Watson, Jumbo Ozaki, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Phil Mickelson, Nick Faldo, Tiger Woods. They have made us want to get up-and-down from nasty. Not that we can, but we can try. Why do we take off our glove to attempt such magic? Because they do.
They had sway, power, style, charisma. Arnold, of course. But Big Jack, too, in his way. Name a decade, I’ll name you players. Casper (‘60s). Trevino (‘70s). Curtis (‘80s). Move over, Ben. Strange could say that because he was in the club. You can’t buy your way into the club. That is, you can’t buy your way into any club that’s worth joining. In Scotland, anybody can join any club, pretty much. But you would not bother unless you really like golf, camaraderie, a monthly medal event. Hole your putts.
In 2014-ish, when the USGA (and the R&A) wanted to get its proposed ban on anchored putting accepted by the PGA Tour and eventually by the golf-playing public, the coats knew they needed to have two people on board: Arnold and Tiger. Arnold was getting near his end and Tiger was long past his peak. Didn’t matter. They were all in on the ban, and that made all the difference. There was no chance the PGA Tour would not be lockstep with the USGA on this matter, no matter what some people at the PGA of America might have wished.
Politics is the art of compromise, of course, but it’s also a study in the use of power, subtle and otherwise. This was subtle. Tiger and Arnold. Solidarity. Tiger was always more Bay Hill than Isleworth, if you know what I mean, but he lived in Isleworth. Arnold could have lived anywhere. He lived in a townhouse in Bay Hill, in the same cul de sac as Grammy Hall, Howdy Giles down the street.
What’s happening now has never happened before: golf’s for sale. It was Tiger’s main topic at his Tuesday press conference. He’s on the PGA Tour board now, and he talked, for the first time, about some new investors coming in. Either those Saudi billionaires or some other billionaires.
“We have multiple options, but we would like to have a deal done Dec. 31,” Woods said. Dec. 31 is the last day of the Gregorian year. There are other calendars. “That’s what the agreement said in the summer and all parties understand that. But there are other options out there.”
The reason this whole thing makes no sense is because it makes no sense. This song and dance over the past two years is so, so narrow. It is a play for the Saudis to buy their way into golf in a big glamorous way, and for some already very pampered high-priest representatives of this game to make even more money. Memo to any and all golf-digging billionaires who might still be here: You can’t buy golf because golf is not for sale.
You can buy tournaments. You can buy players. You can buy equipment companies and resorts. But you can’t buy golf, you can’t buy history, you can’t buy loyalty, you can’t buy passion.
The Saudis could have made this much easier on themselves. They could have spent billions increasing the purses for a bunch of tournaments in golf-mad places like Australia and Japan and South Korea, get their Golf Saudi name attached that way, and watch those players kiss the hands that overfeed them. Come November the Golf Saudis could have had some funny-money events at Royal Greens G&CC or some other swanky place. Some guys would have signed up for all that, of course. They can do as they please, but you can’t make me care.
When I say golf is not for sale, what I mean is the passion for golf is not for sale.
Team golf?
Maybe.
Is the PGA Tour schedule long and boring?
Yes.
Is competitive men’s professional golf better as a global game?
Probably not.
Does the PGA Tour have to be the undisputed best tour in all of world golf? Tiger would say yes and I would too, but the real answer is no. Europe had its star. Australia and Japan, too. For years.
Do we want to see the best players play in the same events more often?
To a point. We already have four such occasions. Four, six or eight more times would be plenty if not too much.
Baseball is stuck (for now) on 162, plus a preseason and an October that ends in November. It’s way too much. Less is more, and low supply yields high demand. Charlie Munger figured that out. He bought See’s Candy Shops in ’71. Proven, quality product. Good investment.
Tiger had a drumbeat at his Tuesday “presser” (oh, please) and anyone could understand the sentiment: The players run the show here; the players run the show here; the players run the show here.
Tiger didn’t like the Jimmy-and-Yasir double-probation top-secret meetings about his tour’s future. So he rallied the troops, got himself first to Delaware and then on the Tour board, giving himself a chance to flex new muscles. (Speaking of muscles, he literally looks like a 47-year-old linebacker, by the way. T’aint human!) Tiger’s smart. He has standing. He knows a lot about professional golf. How well he sees this moment I don’t know. A guess is he sees it through his own narrow prism, as most of us see most everything.
But this moment calls for way more. Way more of the old . . . vision thing. Somebody needs to stand up for the players, the fans, the charities, the sponsors, the game’s past and present and future. For the game.
Dylan Dethier of Golf.com offered a gift to Tiger at the Tuesday press conference, italicized here to its essence:
Tiger, you mentioned protecting the integrity of the Tour and what makes the Tour. I’m curious: What is important about the PGA Tour? What is the bedrock of what makes professional golf valuable?
Tiger’s answer:
“Well, I think that’s a great question, Dylan. What we have to do is make sure we have access to the game. I had access to the game. I had an ability to get on Tour. We [have to] ensure that. We have to protect our schedule and our Tour. Take care of the players. Without the players, there is no Tour. How do we take care of them in a better way? Not just financially. Obviously, everyone wants to get paid. But how do we have the best competitive atmosphere and competitive events from week to week to week and what does that look like? And what does it look like for the players to be involved in that? And what do they have to give up to have that? And what are investors looking for, to invest in our Tour?”
OMG, is that a narrow answer. I mean, I get it. The ultimate beauty of the PGA Tour, and every other professional golf tour I know and admire, is that you earn your way onto it and shoot your way to keeping your spot on it. Tiger is addressing that. It’s a starting point and much more than that, too. But we need way more from Tiger now because golf needs more than that from Tiger now.
Tiger knows this like you and I know this: That golf ball just sits there, doing nothing, and the player does something with it and it’s not easy. The players compete within themselves, against others, with different types of courses and various conditions, with the constant pressure of trying to get to the house, 72 holes after starting. We have invested actual emotion in all of that for a hundred years! We can, because we know how hard it is to do for just 18 holes. What we would give for the chance to play for four straight days, every shot meaningful? Yes, it’s stressful. That’s why it’s great!
You grow into leadership as you grow into all things, and I look forward to hearing Tiger the next time he cares to talk about this game and the high-priest narrow sliver of it that means so much to so many of us.
Peter Malnati, Tiger’s fellow board member, has one PGA Tour win: the 2015 Sanderson Farms Championship. I can guarantee you that Tiger knows something about it, because Tiger loves professional golf and follows it closely. He knows how hard it is to get in that Sanderson field, let alone get to Sunday night a stroke ahead of David Toms and Will McGirt. He knows what it would mean to Malnati to make his first cut in a major, if he ever does. Tiger is going to try to make four cuts this year, too. The last time Woods made all four cuts in majors in a single years was 2013.
Golf’s hard. We play. We know. They play. They know. That is its appeal. Tiger owned it, for a while. That was his appeal. That was then. This is now. We need more from ya, brother.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Bamberger@firepitcollective.com