CENTER STAGE: Tiger Woods tees off at the 1st hole last week at the Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
DC would eventually bring Superman back to life, much to the joy of the son of Krypton’s fans.
For golf fans, any event after last year’s U.S. Open was the opposite of “must see TV” as the sports version of Superman, Tiger Woods, announced that he would miss the remainder of the season to have reconstructive surgery on his left ACL after his sudden death victory over Rocco Mediate at Torrey Pines.
Once in a generation—or even less—people are fortunate enough to witness someone who transcends a given sport, and for golf fans, there’s no time like the present.
Whether you think Woods is the greatest golfer of all time or not, there is no doubt that he is the PGA’s biggest draw.
Tiger is, in essence, professional golf’s golden boy.
Case in point: with “Eldrick” on the shelf, nobody rose to the occasion to capture the imagination of the sports’ fans. And it showed.
According to a July 22, 2008 report in the Los Angeles Times, golf ratings plummeted with Tiger out of the picture.
The L.A. Times reported that the 2008 Buick Open on CBS saw a 12 percent drop in overnight ratings for the fourth round from 1.7 to 1.5, while the AT&T National saw its fourth-round overnight ratings drop 48 percent from 2.9 to 1.5, and third-round ratings fall 35 percent from 2.0 to 1.3.
Even worse, The British Open, one of golf’s grand slam events, saw final round overnight ratings nosedive 14.6 percent from 4.1 to 3.5 on ABC.
In stark contrast, a lot of eyes were watching Tiger’s return to action at the Accenture Match Play Championship last week, even though he was defeated by Tim Clark in the second round.
Despite the early exit, the Golf Channel saw a ratings spike at the tournament’s start and it’s no coincidence that Tiger Woods was playing.
Citing numbers from Page Thompson, president of the Golf Channel, the Chicago Tribune reported that round one set a first-round ratings record for the specialty channel as 50 percent more viewers tuned in this year than last as it earned a 1.8 rating.
In addition, live attendance for the event was up from last year. And once again and it was so that fans could catch a glimpse of Tiger.
Last year at the Accenture Match Play, the first round had 12,500 fans in the stands while this year, there were 13,620.
Even more showed up to watch Tiger in the second round (14,120), up from 12,500 last year.
But there was a decline once Tiger was eliminated. While there was still a sizable crowd for the Woods-less third round on Friday with 11,130 spectators, the figure was down from 12,500 in 2008.
The downward trend continued in the final on Sunday as 6,270 fans watched Geoff Ogilvy defeat Paul Casey, compared to 7,500 who watched Tiger win last year.
Now is a difficult time for corporate sponsorships given the financial uncertainty—as witnessed when Buick cut ties with Woods last November—but Tiger’s return has been welcomed. He is golf’s biggest draw after all.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Gatorade ran ads in Sports Illustrated with the line “Welcome back Tiger” and Pepsi was said to be re-introducing its Tiger Focus sports drink. Forget the recession—Tiger Woods equals money on and off the course.
Interest in golf suffered while Tiger Woods was healing up from his injury. While he didn’t fare as well as he hoped in his return, he did put fans in the stands at the Accenture Match Play championships. People did tune in on TV more than they did while he was injured and will continue to do so in all the events he plays in.
The Crash Test Dummies once sang that Superman didn’t make any money but Tiger Woods does, and the PGA couldn’t be happier.
