Two Cents on Tiger

There’s a billboard-sized digital display one block away from Times Square that reveals the current amount of the U.S. national debt. It updates continuously, presenting numbers so large as to stagger the imagination. I submit to you that the only thing that could match this National Debt Clock in sheer numerical scope would be a similar exhibit (sponsored by Nike, of course) tracking the number of words written about Tiger Woods. Well look at that – I just added 81 to the total!

Right up front I will admit that I don’t really know many of the details about Tiger’s…ahem…”indiscretions”. I’m not a big tabloid guy – I’ve never read the National Inquirer, don’t watch the E! Network, and it wouldn’t cross my mind to surf over to TMZ.com. So when the Tiger story originally broke I didn’t pay much attention. Hell, almost three months into the saga now, I couldn’t tell you the name of a single women involved if my life depended on it. I just didn’t care, much as I don’t care about any of the other “scandals” or scrapes with the law that professional athletes routinely ring up. Perhaps I have an unhealthy lack of curiousity – who knows.

But as time went by I began to realize that this was a much larger issue indeed, and that the sport that for almost a decade has put food on my table was experiencing a major kick to the groin – make that another kick to the groin. I don’t know if there has ever been a more disparate set of bookends to a horrific year for any industry than Barney Frank and Tiger Woods provided in 2009. The former kicked off the year by taking the podium in Congress and pretty much declaring that at the root of the country’s problems was golf – or more specifically golf used as a business tool. Then the latter tied everything up in a nice package by sucker-punching the integrity upon which the entire sport is built – and marketed. It was like all of a sudden Toyota began putting out crappy cars, and…what? What’s that you’re saying? The brakes don’t work? Well now, aren’t we all just going to heck in a handcart, as Woody Boyd used to say from behind the bar at Cheers.

And so it is that I feel compelled to add My Take On Tiger. With apologies to Bill Clinton – it’s my economy, stupid.

Over the years, when it has come up at cocktail parties or on long plane rides that I left a cushy (but boring) six-figure Corporate Job to start over at the bottom of the golf business the questioning has usually gone something like this:

My new friend:  “Are you crazy?”

Me:  “Apparently”

My new friend:  “No seriously, what were you thinking?”

Me:  “Evidently I wasn’t”

My new friend:  “Do you know Tiger Woods?”

Me:  “Nobody knows Tiger”

Prior to last Thanksgiving my response was based on the fact that, while I had often been around Tiger I had never heard him utter a word outside of an obligatory interview – or even make eye contact with anyone outside the ropes, for that matter. During my stint with the PGA Tour, he was well-known for being among the last to check in at tournament Registration each week (typically late in the evening), and his practice rounds almost always began at the first hint of daylight. I had always passed off this behavior as being required in order for The Most Visible Man On The Planet to maintain some semblance of a “normal” life. We now know of course that it was due in some part to the fact that he had things to hide.

So as television ratings plummet and sponsors of ALL golf-related activities waffle on re-upping or entering the fray for the first time, I have to wonder:  Where is the outrage among those of us whose livelihoods are directly impacted  by golf’s new pariah status in the boardroom? OF COURSE he owes us an apology, and OF COURSE it is our business – literally and figuratively.

Tiger Woods carefully cultivated a brand of ultimate integrity, and to a lesser extent arrogance well-earned through hard work, grit and determination. We all took his lead. We built upon the brand with complete confidence in its authenticity.

At one tournament for which I worked I was tasked with soliciting local in-kind sponsorships, i.e. “trade-outs” of goods and services for tickets and hospitality-related perks. In one instance I dealt with the CEO of a regional restaurant chain who was very interested in providing gobs and gobs of food for the tournament’s volunteers in exchange for some up-close and personal Tiger Time. As we went back and forth on finalizing this deal, I had absolute total access to this corporate titan. I kid you not when I say that I was on his speed-dial, and that he would excuse himself from meetings to take my calls. He loved the brand, and I was empowered by the brand. And on it went, as scenarios like this played out for years throughout the golf landscape.

And it was all a lie. A well-crafted lie, supported by an ongoing tag-team cover-up that would have given Woodward and Bernstein pause.

So to those that would say, “It’s a private matter between he and his wife” I say it’s a very public matter between he and my wife, each time I have to tell The Bird that another sponsor has decided to “go in a different direction” with regard to their sports marketing dollars.

So a note to Team Tiger as they embark on recrafting his image:  God help you  – The Bird has an uncanny ability to hold a grudge.