Tiger Woods: 10 Signs Tigermania Is Finally Beginning To Wane
For the first time since 1997, Tiger Woods is no longer ranked among the top 10 players in the world, according to the formula that determines the best players in the world.
Tiger still thinks he is the best player in the world, if not all-time, because of his unwavering self-assurance. This characteristic has been the trait that has helped Tiger throughout his career to win 71 PGA titles and 14 Major Championships.
But does the public still believe in Tiger Woods the way they once did?
Fans of Tiger Woods would stop watching the particular tournament Tiger was playing in as soon as he fell out of contention.
How many of those same fans have stopped watching Tiger altogether? Here are 10 reasons that people who used to love Tiger may have stopped believing in and watching him.
10. New Swing Coach
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The only time in golf history where a single player possessed all four major trophies at one time happened when Tiger Woods had Butch Harmon, now with Phil Mickelson, as his swing coach. Everyone who wasn’t a golf fan had heard about how under the tutelage of Butch, Tiger has been so successful.
Tiger then switched his swing coach to the coach of his close friend Mark O’Meara, Hank Haney. This change was such a big deal because Tiger was so successful under Butch Harmon—again, the only time a player had won four straight majors—that it seemed crazy to fix something that wasn’t broken. On top of that, Hank Haney would help Tiger undergo a swing change.
This was huge news because no one understood this change. Routinely critics said, “Didn’t he win eight Major Championships including four in a row under Butch and that swing? Why would he want to change that?”
Tiger ended up winning six Major Championships with the new swing. But last year in 2010 after the Masters, Tiger fired Hank Haney and by the 2010 PGA Championship, had asked Sean Foley to be his coach and once again change his swing.
But there were no major headlines with this story. Sure, those close to golf were all over it, but it wasn’t even half the story it was the first time Tiger changed coaches and a swing.
9. Golf Viewership Is Down
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On Sunday at the 2011 Masters Championship, Tiger lit up the front nine shooting a four-under(-par). An eagle on hole No. 8 was accompanied by a huge Augusta National roar and the standard Tiger Woods fist pump. Tiger was back.
But who saw it?
Compared to the number of people who would have been watching that Sunday pre-2009 Thanksgiving, almost nobody was watching.
The ratings for golf went up when Tiger came onto the scene in 1997 and the ratings went down in 2010 when Tiger didn’t play until the Masters of that year.
Had Tiger gone on to destroy the back nine of the Masters just as he had done on the front nine, maybe he would have won the Masters—maybe even brought golf and the old image of Tiger Woods back to the way it was prior to his car crash.
But he didn’t dominate the back nine and shot an even par 36, and the viewers didn't come back.
8. Dropping of Sponsorships
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With companies like Accenture, Gatorade and AT&T dropping Tiger, he subsequently stopped showing up on TV with that huge smile and making people laugh.
Part of the reason Michael Jordan was so popular was because of his commercial success. Tiger copied the Jordan success path even down to joining most of the same companies.
When parents see Tiger in commercials as a quality role model for their kids, the awareness of and exposure to golf rises. Since the news of Woods' extramarital affairs, parents no longer wanted their kids idolizing him the same way they used to.
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7. No PGA Win Since 2009
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The last time Tiger topped all other PGA professionals at a sanctioned event was on September 13th, 2009 at the BMW Championship.
People are used to seeing Tiger winning almost every time he walked out on the golf course. He has won 71 PGA titles, putting him third all-time, two behind Jack Nicklaus and 11 behind Sam Snead.
Because of his dominance on the golf course, players feared Tiger and people loved watching him win. Since he hasn’t been winning, people haven’t been watching.
Also, since players no longer feared Tiger as much as they used to, Tiger no longer has a particular edge over the field in the four Major Championship tournaments.
6. Last Major Win Was the 2008 U.S. Open
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The last time Tiger won a major tournament was on one leg during the U.S. Open. It took him an extra 19 holes to beat Rocco Mediate. It was one of the greatest moments in golf history.
He then had to take the rest of the season off to have his leg surgically repaired, and Tiger has yet to bring home a major trophy since.
He also has yet to bring back the fear into the players playing around him.
For Woods to bring Tigermania back, he needs to give them a reason to come back. That reason would easily be winning major tournaments again.
If he can start winning again—more importantly, winning Major Championships again—he can start to move back toward being the No. 1 player in the world.
5. Dropped Out of the Top 10 for 1st Time Since 1997
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Winning the Masters for the first time in 1997 moved Tiger Woods into the top 10 in the world and he stayed there until last week when Tiger dropped to 13th-best player in the world.
The formula that is used to determine the best players in the world only uses the past two years of a player’s career to place them on the world ranking list. Tiger hasn’t played many tournaments in these past two years and more importantly, hasn’t won many tournaments in those two years.
Remember, his last win was in late 2009 and some of his early wins of that year are now coming off the books in terms of rankings. If Tiger does not win another tournament by September 18th, 2011, he will not have a single win to help boost his rankings in the world.
Luke Donald, the current No. 1 player in the world, has played in 53 events over the past two years compared to Woods’ 40 events. Part of the reason he hasn’t played in so many events and has hurt his chances of winning is because of injuries.
4. Injuries
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After the U.S. Open in 2008, Tiger had to have is left knee surgically repaired. This took him away from the national spotlight for the rest of the year.
Since then, he has never fully healed.
Currently, Tiger is battling an Achilles problem that forced him to drop out of the Players Championship earlier in May after only playing nine holes.
Not being able to play in golf tournaments and not even being able to swing a club will hurt any player in their golf game. In the past, Tiger has been able to simply work harder than everyone else which gave him an edge over the competition. But not being able to hit a ball when everyone else can puts him behind everybody else.
Talent is not what made Tiger Woods so much better than everyone else for so long; it was the fact that he could practice longer and harder than everyone else. Now there is a large group of young guys, led by Rory Mcllroy, that is practicing just as much and as hard as Tiger did.
3. Young Guys Are Playing Well
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Before Tiger entered the scene, a golf tournament looked like a bunch of overweight, non-athletic people playing a professional sport. They looked as though they couldn’t make a free throw, much less hit a 300-yard drive.
But then, this 21-year-old Tiger Woods who showed up was fit, athletic and could just as easily be seen playing baseball or basketball. He stood out in a good way by making all the other professionals understand that if they wanted to compete against this guy, they were going to have to work harder than they ever had before.
Tiger had an edge on all of them, getting to his 10,000 hours of practice much sooner than the veteran players had by working harder than any of them.
This edge disappeared when all the young players who grew up watching Tiger play saw what it took and emulated him. They all have worked hard amassing thousands of hours of practice, much like Tiger did, well before they enter the PGA Tour.
Now these players who have only known to work hard every day to get better, like Tiger would have, are putting in more hours of practice because of his injuries.
Tiger has to rest when injured to allow his body to recover. But one hiatus from the sport he did choose to take was after it was discovered that he had been cheating on his wife.
2. His Divorce from Elin
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After the 2009 Thanksgiving car crash Tiger was in, his life and golf career have never been the same.
Tiger went to great lengths to maintain privacy of his personal life. Much like Michael Jordan, media members did not want to get on Tiger Woods’ bad side by asking and probing into a part of Tiger's life he did not want you to find out about.
By 2010, there was nowhere for Tiger to hide it anymore. After allegations of infidelity on Tiger's part proved true, Tiger's personal life was out in the open for all to see.
Sponsors dropped Woods from their payroll and parents no longer let their kids love him the way they used to.
Tiger Woods went to a sex rehab clinic were he tried to make things right with Elin in order to save his marriage and his family.
This caused him to not swing a golf club for months and not play in a tournament until the Masters, where he finished fourth. But the damage had already been done.
It took until August for Tiger's divorce from Elin to become final. He was now on his own. No longer having to work to save his marriage, he could focus on golf, but not the same way he used to focus on the sport he loved.
Tiger still had his two kids and they were going to be his first priority.
1. Tiger Woods Is Now Human
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When it comes to being the best in the world, you have to be different. You have to put in more time on the golf course than anyone else so that it will separate you from the competition.
I don’t want to watch the average golfer. I want to watch the elite golfers in the world. The reason so many wanted to watch Tiger is because he was much better than even the elite golfers. Now that he has kids and spends time with them instead of focusing on golf, he no longer dominates them as he did in the past.
I’m not saying that spending time with your kids is a bad thing; what I’m saying is Tiger now is like the rest of us and no one wants to watch a more average Tiger Woods. That’s why Tigermania is down—because Tiger is now becoming more and more like the rest of us.
Hollywood doesn’t make movies based on normal, average lives. A movie like that would be boring and we don’t want to see that movie because most of us are living it.
People complain “It only happens in the movies.” Of course it is only happening in the movies because if the movies depicted normalcy, no one would spend money to go watch what they live for free everyday.
I don’t want Tiger to live like me; I want him to constantly be playing or thinking about golf, just like he used to before he got married.
We all watch sports because of the unbelievable talent the players possess. I want my star players to be odd balls when it comes to being a normal human being and be strangely obsessed about being the best player ever.
Michael Jordan was that way, and I want Tiger Woods to go back to being that way.
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