Tiger shows that he was worth every penny he was paid

Friday, November 13, 2009 2:41 am (Eastern)

By SAL JOHNSON
Publisher, GOLFOBSERVER
E-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com

Tiger Woods was paid $3 million dollars and lots of folks objected to this. But after seeing what Tiger Woods has done to restore the reputation of the Australian Masters and with him leading going into the weekend, you won't find many folks complaing about the cost.

For eight months golf writers have been reporting about the merits of paying Tiger Woods $3 million to play in Australia. For some it was a big waste of money while others thought that maybe it would revitalize golf in Australia. After this week its very easy to see that it was money well spent.

Photo: © Mark Dadswell/Getty Images With all of the folks that have been following Woods it's sometimes hard to find Tiger in the sea of humanity.

In this day and age in which the importance of championships is in how many of the great players participate, golf in Australia has always lagged way behind. Many may not realize it, but championship golf has been played just about as long down under than it's been played here in America, the Australian Open was first played in 1904 while the first Australian PGA was played a year later. Because of the distance away from America and Britain most of the winners in the early days were players from Austalian, along with Gene Sarazen who won the 1936 Australian Open.

Just like the British Open, the worldwide popularity of golf help Australian make strides in the mid-fifties with the advent of jets making the world a lot smaller and easier to get around. The first players to venture over to Australia were South African's Bobby Locke and Gary Player, who both won down under in the 50s. In the 60s, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus also ventured down under and won as the Australian Open got it's 15 minutes of fame once a year.

Photo: © Lucas Dawson/Getty Images Woods shot 68 on Friday and is at 10 under and leads by three.

Along with players like Nicklaus, Palmer and Player winning, other foreigners like Tom Watson, Hale Irwin, Seve Ballesteros and even J.C. Snead won in the 70s, but the popularity of both events in Australia weren't at the level of the British Open. Two things hindered its potential popularity, first being in the southern hemisphere, summer fell in our winter and players didn't want to go to Australia during the down time in the States. Many felt that once the tour ended in October, it was time to put the clubs away until January so going to Australia in November/December wasn't very popular. But the real killer was the distance, going to Britain for the British Open is just a six hour affair from New York, going to Australia from the East Coast is a 24 hour affair.

So as time past and the Palmer's, Nicklaus's and Players grew older and didn't go over, the popularity of American's going over grew less and less. Even this year out of a field of 144 at the Australian Masters, the only Americans playing are Tiger, Jason Duffner and Arnold Palmer's grandson Sam Saunders. Talking about American's at the Masters, since the event started in 1979 only one American, Mark O'Meara has won the event, he did that in 1986. In looking further at the big three of Australian golf, the last time an American won was Brad Faxon at the 1993 Australian Open.

So all of that has hurt the growth of golf down under. Things did get better with Greg Norman and the other Australian players like Geoff Ogilvy, Adam Scott, Stuart Appleby and Aaron Baddeley, plus the Australian Tour merged with the European Tour on some events in the early part of this decade that helped grow golf in Australia. But a combination of ego's of those running the Australian PGA Tour and the lack of players coming down to attend the events created a downward spiral of the tour in which tournaments like the Greg Norman Holden and Heineken Classic folded while the Johnnie Walker Classic found other places in Asia to play. You have to wonder if the Australian PGA could of forged some relationship with the American PGA Tour could things been different,. But that never happened and the Australian Masters, Australian PGA and the Australian Open are struggling.

Photo: © Robert Cianflone/Getty Images Woods putting was sharp on Friday as he made a lot of par savers.

The real shame is the lack of interest of the Australian Open, which is the biggest golf event in Australia. Again ego's in not getting involved with either the European or PGA Tour have hindered the event and the "Field of dreams" attitude thinking that people would flock to this event because of it's history has not happened. Getting some Australians that now live in the United States to play has been a struggle and in the last couple of years the event hasn't even been televised in the United States, thus losing the interest of the biggest golfing country in the world.

In the last couple of years the Australian swing was falling apart. The Australian Open was sponsor less and the Australian PGA lost Cadbury as the Australian Masters lost Sportsbook just a year after losing MasterCard. Things in January were pretty bad. The Australian Masters is run by IMG and they floated the idea of getting Tiger Woods to play, only problem was that Tiger wasn't free. Not only would it have to work into his schedule but a "fee" of $3 million needed to be raised. So a combination of money from the Victorian government was raised and with a lot of people not very happy an agreement was forged with Woods earlier in the year.

Photo: © Robert Cianflone/Getty Images Woods is in control of his game going into the weekend.

In hindsight it was money well spent because it not only helped get JBWere to sponsor the event, but it also became a cosponsor event with the European Tour again, which opened up to get world-wide distribution of the televised shows. Sources have told me that without Woods, this all wouldn't of gotten worked out. In a way getting Tiger has raised the level of the event from a local event to a world-wide event. More people are following this event over the season ending Children's Miracle Network on the PGA Tour. Tickets for all days have been sold out for months and the overall interest level is the highest in Australia since the Accenture Match Play was in the country back in 2001. So no matter what anyone says, the $3 million spent on Tiger is the smartest money spent.

Hopefully with this turning into a success, those that run the three big events will see that maybe money will have to be spent in not only getting Tiger to play but also Phil, Ernie and other marquee players. It will also help if they can schedule these three events around the WGC-HSBC Champions in China were these players will play in and can find a way to make a nice three week swing for these marquee players. Come 2011 when the Presidents Cup is played in Australia, they can try to wedge the Presidents Cup in between these three events so that when the best players in the world come down, they will play some of Australia's main events.

Photo: © Robert Cianflone/Getty Images If Woods could win this week, it would be his first win on the continent of Australia leaving him with wins in every continent except for Africa and Antarctica.

As for this year the star is Tiger Woods. He has the bulk of the gallery following him around and after two rounds he has shown what a champion he is, with rounds of 66-68 he has a three shot lead over Greg Chalmers, James Nitties and fellow American Jason Dufner, who had one of the low rounds of the day a 67. In looking at Woods week, he has missed only 8 of 36 greens and taken only 53 putts. More importantly he is in the groove on those 5, 6 and 7 footers to save par as in 36 holes he has only made one bogey.

For the week he has shown a likely for Kingston Heath, yes with the dry, hot weather the course is playing hard and fast, but the greens have been watered, thus making them easier to control shots to them and slowing them down.

The important element is that Woods has put himself in a very good position for the weekend. In the past when he got himself into this position, he was a slam-dunk. In looking at those close to Woods, players like Greg Chalmers, Jason Dufner, James Nitties, Mathew Goggin, Ashley Hall and Manny Villegas (brother of Camilo) aren't in the same league as Woods but as we know in golf, you never know when someone could have that week of his life and find some way to beat Woods. In a way this is just like when Y.E. Yang was close to Woods and was able to cash in, so we shouldn't think that this is a slam-dunk for Woods.

Now one of the things left is for Woods to win. According to TigerWoods.Com, he has won 95 professional events around the world. Of the seven regions of the world, Tiger has won in four at North America, South America, Europe and Asia. If he can add Australia this week, it just leaves Afica and Antarctica which probably won't ever have an event in Tigers lifetime.


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