Tiger Woods watches his drive off the 5th tee during the second round of the Memorial Tournament at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, Friday, June 4, 2004. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
Thirteen-years ago Eldrick Tont ‘Tiger’ Woods graced our shores. Despite, having no majors to his name, he was already a rising star. Two years later, his visit to Australia for the President’s Cup was well documented.
The Footy Show did a parody of a fake Tiger Woods at a driving range in Sydney, duffing every shot.
The look-a-like then swore and broke his amateur looking clubs, before getting back in a car and driving away to the shock of onlookers.
Surprisingly, that clip didn’t feature on the Footy Show Best Of, nor can it be found on the reliable Youtube. It’s as if Tiger’s legal team saw it, and banished it to the wastelands – marked “never to be seen again”.
If Tiger’s visit was big 11-years ago, this will be monumental.
We Australians love getting behind the big names. Around 12-months ago, the arrival of John Daly boosted crowd figures. The attention given to him was so immense that he ended up breaking a spectators’ camera.
The problem has been attracting world golfers consistently. Unlike tennis, there is no major tournament that requires the world’s best to turn up.
The days are long gone of the Australian Open being considered the unofficial ‘Fifth Major’. But come Thursday, it won’t matter. Anywhere that Tiger plays automatically becomes important.
For an Australian golf event to be sold out two months in advance is phenomenal. Channel Nine jumped on the bandwagon securing the rights to the Australian Masters. It’s their first foray into domestic golf for a long time.
This week, any golfer who tees off at a similar time to Woods can expect little coverage, no matter how well he plays.
The camera directors will make sure every movement is captured of the superstar, and the microphones will be turned up that little extra.
When the announcement was made that Tiger was going to head down under for an exurbanite fee, the inevitable question was, “Can you imagine if he doesn’t make the cut?”
And it’s a legitimate question considering Kingston Heath, is no picnic. Despite, winning three British Opens, Tiger Woods has had his worst results on Links-based courses.
It’s rather ironic that this is the first year the Masters will be played away from Huntingdale – a course that would have suited Woods down to the ground.
Despite Tiger’s arrival being a PR success already, organisers need him to at least make the cut. The average Joe with no interest in golf is only going to tune in on the weekend if Tiger is there.
If he then pulls out some monster putts, with the trademark fist pump, there might be a few new golf members across the country.
In 15-20 years time it will be great to hear an Australian say after winning the US Masters that he took up golf after watching Tiger Woods dominate in Australia.
Whatever happens, the circus behind the superstar’s arrival will be fascinating, just like it was when David Beckham arrived with the L.A Galaxy.
On that occasion, I was watching the match in a pub.
Just before he scored that goal from a trademark free-kick, I heard someone say “Beckham is hopeless, I don’t know why he gets paid so much money.”
I suspect the naysayers will be secretly hoping for a poor performance by Tiger, so they can claim the moral high ground of how preposterous it was to pay someone $3 million to turn up.
The rest of us will just sit back and enjoy watching the master make the hardest sport look so damn easy.
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