Tiger and the Money

The roots of Australian Golf have been shaken. Old timers are pulling up their knee length socks and sifting through their old Dunlop 65's.

Young punks have swapped the surfboard for a set of sticks and even your average sports fan is probably aware of the situation. In fact, Australian Brian Eno fans have even heard the news.

Tiger Woods is coming to Australia.

Woods hasn't been here for 10 years, and he's coming again to play in the Australian Masters, at a price. A $3 million price to be exact.

Debate rages over this decision by the Victorian government, and Aussie Golfer can't see this dying down for some time. Tiger Woods will be quizzed on this relentlessly when he arrives.

The Australian media and public aren't nearly as pandering when it comes to this sort of rapaciousness as in other parts of the globe. He's successful, too, of course, so beware. If you aren't aware of Australia's love with the Tall Poppy Syndrome, I suggest you click the link and get acquainted.

If you allow me to continue, I just have a few things to say on all this.

The Money

I'd love to see Tiger play and will do what I can in order to see him in Melbourne, but the appearance fee is exorbitant. It's nigh-on ridiculous, and it's hard for any golf lover, let alone a State Government, to justify this spending even though he is arguably the greatest golfer ever.

But from a golf point of view, think about this. What would happen if we took the $3 million from Tiger paws and put it into the winning purse raising it from $275,000 to $3.275 million.

Maybe add it to the total prize money. Who this would attract? More Top 10 players? Could we get 5 or 6 Porsches rather than one Rolls Royce? We'll have a few Australian made Porsches playing here already.

State vs. State

This whole State versus State mentality in Australian golf has to stop right now. Leave it to the other sports. The NSW Premier Nathan Rees's comments on the issue and his preference to Brian Eno is stupid.

I don't care if he does prefer Eno. The Joshua Tree was brilliant, but turning this into a public slanging match doesn't help one bit. Victorian Premier John Brumby's choice of words aren't much better.

Why is this even a State thing anyway? I'm completely confused and infuriated that the three States that hold Australia's major golf tournaments in NSW, Victoria and Queensland can't work together to get big names for all tournaments.

Golf Australia has a lot to answer for here, but I assume it's all a money thing. The States have the money and therefore, they do the talking.

Tiger in Melbourne, great.
Tiger in Australia, even better.