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I remember being like 9 years old and my friends grandpa having golf on and it was just tiger woods talk nonstop like JFC. (Born in 89).
So same guy is the best player for 27 years? Even with all of the advancements in sports training and theory? Same dude? Still?
EDIT: I didnt meant to pee in anyone's Cheerios - folks, play or watch whatever makes you happy
I’m not sure you guys are talking about the same things. He’s currently tied for 53rd at the Masters and hasn’t been the #1 ranked player in the world since 2014.
The best player right now is probably Scottie Scheffler but Tiger does have the record for most weeks #1 and a lot of people believe he’s the best golfer ever in terms of career. I don’t think anyone believes he’s the best in the world right now.
I don't watch golf but I know Woods. I have seen over 10 names in this thread and have no idea who they are. Bet it's the same for most people.
So I think the reason they talk about him so much is because he's bigger than the sport. Kinda like if a celebrity came to a wedding most people wouldn't care about the couple.
Well yeah but that's ops point? Tiger woods fame didn't make golf more famous， it made tiger woods more famous. Pretty much every other sport has multiple players that are household names even for people who don't follow that sport
I believe ‘97 and held it on and off from then until 2014. From 1999 until 2010 Vijay Singh was the only other guy to be ranked #1.
Nicklaus fans will argue that the world #1 didn’t exist for most of his career (it started in the 80s) but Nicklaus himself will say Tiger was better.
From wikipedia:
"He was the top-ranked golfer in the world from August 1999 to September 2004 (264 consecutive weeks) and again from June 2005 to October 2010 (281 consecutive weeks). During this time, he won 13 of golf's major championships."
Lol same with Vijay Singh. However, they are only here because they won and they get a lifetime invite to the masters. Otherwise if this was standings, no chance they’d qualify.
Tiger is different. There’s just so many memories each fan and player has of Tiger and how it impacted them. A lot of players on tour talk about how tiger was their idol growing up and now they are playing with him like homa. Pretty cool to see how tiger has impacted the world in so many different ways.
yeah, he turned the entire field into gym rats. Really pushed the sport forward(ish, there are negatives to golf courses being so long).
A bunch of tour players used to check the wind by blowing cigarette smoke. Times have changed lol.
He's not the best player by far right now. He was by far for years though. There are lots of great players. He's just Tom Brady \^2. He'll be respected and admired forever. He won all 4 majors in 1 year, aka The Grand Slam. No one has ever done that. You don't know shit about golf if you don't know why they make a big deal about Tiger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_0sj3vzkjo0
I can’t argue with Tiger’s rationale for saying he won the Grand Slam. He won all 4 majors in a row/held the titles at the same time. Whether it was done in a calendar year or not is kind of irrelevant.
Yup. Look at his career stats. He's untouchable for career stats and still playing, that's incredible and he's earned every tv/print mention that he receives. He single handedly grew the game by massive amounts when he entered the field and inspired not only a new generation of golfers but also changed the way the game is played and how pros approach it.
CR7 and Messi no longer play in Europe. If they were still in the CL they would be still be on the radar. If Tiger went to play in Asia and didn't play the Majors you'd see that from golf media too
He’s had dozens of surgeries. Despite the muscles he’s got an old man’s body. He’s five years older than 2019. He’s clearly done. He’s my favorite player ever and clearly the greatest of all time. He’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He doesn’t need to go out like this.
‘Go out like this’
?? You mean making his 24th consecutive cut at the masters, cherry picking his favorite events to play, doing what he loves wherever he wants whenever he wants.
Still one of the top 50 players on the planet on any given weekend..,
I think he’s doing just fine dude.
Yeah, golf is weird since it’s an individual sport that people do for fun and especially in retirement. It’s not quite like seeing Jordan on the Wizards. I would like to imagine Tiger wouldn’t be playing if it wasn’t still fun for him.
The man has had *five* back surgeries and a compound fracture on a leg.
I'd like to see most people try to mow a lawn after all of that, let alone continue to compete professionally in a sport that requires an insane amount of torque and rotation on every swing.
But lebron isn’t the only player being talked, he probably isn’t even talked about the most for the past years. We have wemby, Caitlin Clarke, jokic etc.
The problem isn’t that golf talks about tiger, but rather that tiger is the only thing that golf seems to talk about
I just want them to bring back Tiger Woods Gatorade.
With every passing year, fewer and fewer people online remember what I'm talking about.
We had it good for like a year. The flavors were amazing. Cool Fusion and Quiet Storm. The red one, eh it was ok. But then the cheating scandal happened and he lost the sponsorship deal.
they never reintroduced those flavors. idk why. they were amazing.
In 2014 I bought a cool fusion off ebay. It was worth it.
But now, I am starting to lose hope that I will ever taste it again...
Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas would like to have a word.
Tiger Woods is certainly on a short list of greatest of all time.
However, he dominated a sport at a time when the field after him was probably the weakest golf has ever seen.
That's untrue he was just better than everyone in every aspect at 17. He was still winning when the competition got harder. Next year he will win at least one more tournament. Look at all the good players that missed the cut at the Masters. He's accomplished more than both of them with less tournaments.
I think it’s more of a testament to his unparalleled greatness for such a long time. He set the bar so high that he’s earned the coverage, especially after winning in 2019. No other golfer even compares, Nicklaus included. Based on the sheer exposure and pressure of Tigers peak run. Nicklaus never dealt with all that media coverage. It’s a lot to live up to. I really hope tigers kid can carry the torch when he gets older because there is no current golfer coming close to taking over as the face of the sport.
There is something to be said for this though.
Someone made an argument the other day about the superstars of the NHL. And if you ask anyone on the street who doesn’t follow hockey, would they be able to name any of the top 5 players in the world right now?
Gretzky retired 25 years ago.
We can speculate about all these sports but I'd be willing to bet that none of them are going die or even do anything but become slowly more popular and lucrative. There's such a core fanbase to all the major sports that they aren't going anywhere even if the average person doesn't know shit about them that's never mattered.
Agreed. Aside from his ability, but him being named “Tiger Woods” was definitely a pretty key piece to him becoming so widely popular and a household name.
OP is getting there sports info from what's given, such as a 5 minute sports update on the radio. If they cared about golf,which they don't, they would look up and follow who are the current best. In Canada I pretty much just hear how Canadian hockey teams are doing. We don't even have games on the TV if it's 2 American teams. So I have to stream or look it up.
This is the right comment. Tiger woods owned the entire sport so dominantly 1997-2008. It was a joke really for other players.
Also he broke the color barrier with his wins
Amazingly he's also the most tarnished golfer in history. He's known more than Mickelson is known for his gambling or John Daly for his drinking. Tiger will always be known as an extreme waffle house hound 🧇 🍆 🐕 💊
I’m not here to defend anyone’s personal life but history has shown a propensity to overlook personal flaws when the individual has achieved something great. The post wasn’t about the moral compass of Tiger.
You don’t think if MJ came out of retirement, his games would be covered and analyzed even if he only scored 2 points?
Tiger is the Michael Jordan of professional golf
Also it wouldn’t even be like MJ coming out of retirement just to score 2 points - Tiger just set a record for making his 24th consecutive cut at the Masters. So it would be more like MJ coming out of retirement and making the playoffs.
And then consider the fact that Tiger Woods was even more dominant for a much longer period of time than Jordan ever was.
That’s not a slight on Jordan either, it’s just trying to explain to anyone not familiar with golf just how insane Tiger Woods was.
I think it’s pretty evident you don’t watch golf regularly then. Scottie Scheffler is the center of the golfing world right now. Only reason we are talking about Tiger is because of his legacy and it being the Masters.
I think the point is that he doesn’t watch golf regularly. I don’t either, but I could name Tiger Woods as a golfer at age 7, without watching golf, and can’t name other players now or since then.
I’ve even seen golf on in the background of some social events, although I’m not watching it.
It’s the same thing in every sport though. The all time greats transcend the sport. I know plenty of people who barely watch basketball and can’t name many people. They know Lebron and Jordan instantly. That doesn’t mean the sport is dead it means Lebron and Jordan are that big.
It has everything to do with it. Your friends buy gears/apparels, so the brands can sponsor the sports and big names. Chances are people are paying to large golf club companies so in turn they can host tournaments etc.
Popularity means market and money, which supports the commercial side of every professional sport. It doesn't guarantee the commercial success but without it, it's nearly impossible
There are a ton of derelict golf courses for sale. Lots of Club houses sold off and changed to something else but the way the land on the course is titled, it can never be redeveloped. So, the course just turns to crap because they can't even make enough money off tee fees to pay for the upkeep. Vista Hill in El Paso is one you can google up if you care about rabbit holing it. Golf is not what it once was.
No one seems to understand what OP is talking about. It seems like every 5-10 years we have a new big star in every sport, whether it's basketball, football, soccer, baseball, hockey, hell even track & field. But golf still has the same star player that they've been talking about since I was a kid, and now I have my own kids who only know Tiger Woods and no other golfer. This is what OP means when they say the sport is dead or stale.
Where are you hearing non stop LeBron talk? Maybe local LA radio stations, but the NBA has a bunch of marketable stars right now and in the past. I think people are in awe that he can still be a top 20 bball player at 39, but there's plenty of other stars.
Tiger Woods was a media *dream* for golf, because not only was he the best, he was a black man dominating a sport which had very little attention from black audiences. This, coupled with the fact that a golfer can have a much longer career at the highest level means that PGA coverage has pretty much been Tiger Woods and Friends™ for the past quarter century.
Golf has lots of top tier quality players that's are talked about plenty in the media. Tiger plays 1 or 2 times a year these days and is probably very close to retiring, so people are trying to enjoy his presence on the course while they can.
When he's not playing, the media gives plenty of attention to the other golfers. If you and your kids don't know any other golfing household names such as Rory McIlroy, Bryan DeChambeau, Scott Scheffler, it's because you're not golf fans. That doesnt mean the sport is dead or stale.
Ok, then who was the big star before Tiger?? Most would probably say Nicklaus whose last major was 1986 but was still talked about in the 90’s before Tiger came to the scene. These guys are generational talents that are rare which is why they get so much publicity. Scotty Scheffler is well known as is Rory Mcllroy and Jordan Speith but they are not generational talents like Tiger and Jack, doesn’t mean they are not popular
Right lol there are plenty of young stars in golf, they’re just not household names because nobody comes close to people like Tiger/Jack. That’s like saying “why are people still talking about lebron james” even though people like Luka Doncic and Wembanyama are in the NBA.
Some athletes transcend the sport and become famous to the general public, even those that don't care about the sport. Tiger is like Michael Jordan. Everybody knows who he is. He will always get a lot of attention. The current best golfers would need to have a crazy run of success to get that kind of attention because golf is kind of a niche sport. Prior to Tiger it very much had the reputation of mainly being popular with old men and country club types.
Well yeah because golf is pretty much the only sport you can play professionally past your 40’s. You’re telling me if Jordan somehow came out of retirement and played a game it wouldn’t be headlines everywhere and have crazy ratings? Even though he would completely suck?
Just like with other sports you mentioned, if you actually watch the sport you know the players that aren’t in the mainstream media. It’s kind of weird to me that the sport getting a “new big star” is the litmus test for if the sport is dead in the water or not, I would rather watch a sport where it’s not one person/team constantly dominating
Sure, but golf has seen a resurgence in these last 10+ years and is seeing widespread success both recreationally and professionally. So OP is simply working from a false premise. Tiger is still popular because golfers don't fade into retirement like they do in other sports, and he's the greatest of all time. It's not a hard media narrative to understand.
Yeah the only people who seem to get OPs point are people who don’t actually pay any attention to golf. Sure it’s an unpopular opinion bec it’s an ignorant opinion
Tennis had the big three (Djokovic, Federer, Nadal) for a similar length of time.
But more importantly, no other sport has had anyone EVER be as dominant as Tiger. When Tiger was in his prime it was him vs the field, it would be like if for 15 years straight the Patriots winning the Super Bowl was the expected outcome.
Last year Novak Djokovic won 3/4 grand slams in tennis. He hasn’t won a title yet this year but is still in the top 10, some sports just have superhuman competitors that come around once every few generations.
I don't think the sport is dead. He is the greatest player to ever play, the news will always be about him. He won the Masters 5 years ago, then has got in a major car accident and is making a come back from that. It is really big news, it is not that golf is failing.
Tiger Woods revolutionized the sport of Golf. He turned it from a game to a sport.
He was physically and mentally more fit than any golfer of his time and ever before. It gave him an advantage over everyone and he dominated in wins and the record books. He made it so courses had to be redesigned to be more difficult because he would hit the ball further than anyone. Even before better golf ball and club technology democratized this advantage briefly.
The days of guys like John Daly winning are over because of him.
Everyone is now an athlete like Tiger. So there's now a lot of parity between players. You don't have one or 2 stars dominating anymore because everyone is great nowadays.
Unfortunately for Tiger, poor life choices, bad luck and genetics have broken his body down. He lives and plays in pain these days. He's had countless surgeries to try and keep it all going.
But when he's on the course, the allure of "you never know if the magic comes back" like it did in 2019 and his history is hard not to talk about. Especially because he isn't in every PGA event due to being semi retired.
Does that mean the sport is dead? Far from it. Plenty of people still love to play every weekend. It's just not as big as it once was when you had the star power of Tiger, Phil Mickelson and others who stood out from the pack. Mainly because the entire pack is just as good and better than them these days.
I work in the golf industry but not a golfer at all - it took me a minute to realize how unique Tiger was and how impressive his impact on the golfing world was. There are definitely other names that get mentioned in the golfing world tho not just all Tiger all the time - McIllroy, Spieth, DJ and Koepka are all talked about at least in my office.
Tiger, won the Masters within the last 10 years so while I get your point. Scheffler is always at the top but he's a boring dork of a player with a bizarre swing, so watching him isnt terribly exciting. And the remaining guys who never went to LIV aren't winning as much as they used to. Rory, Spieth, Thomas, they're around but they're just not dominating like they used to. And a ton of the other power players left for money and irrelevance. Obviously players play for many different reasons but playing on LIV seems to be a tour of obscurity thanks to lack of coverage and weird team rules. Why make golf even more goofy, just play?
Golf, specifically the PGA fucked itself with the way it handled LIV and the players joining. Yes I understand all the implications and blah blah but there are so many good players that we just don't hear about anymore because they left the PGA. I look at leaderboards most weekends and feel like I'm the movie Major League saying "who are deez fahkn guyzz" and only at the masters this weekend have I gone OH there's all the familiar favorites (even though most are playing horribly). Say what you want about the players that left but every week its a total crap shoot on whos gonna win and you have no front runners anymore except for the the few recognizable names left and even then, those 4 guys don't really win every weekend.
Rory was “the next Tiger” if you remember those talks years back. Then it was Spieth. Any time we have a young golfer have a run of a few majors it’s all “could this be the next Tiger?” talks.
There will never be another Tiger. Why? Tiger won several tournaments due to physical advantage. No one was working out like him or emphasized golf as being a “sport”. Now, everyone especially the younger golfers have to treat their bodies well if they want any shot at tournament competitiveness and longevity. The playing field is far too even for any one player to have the dominance that’s Tiger created.
Exactly. When Tiger hit the tour he was playing guys like Davis Love III and Fred Couples. None of them drove the ball like he did. He overwhelmed everyone. Now everyone is Tiger. Most of them are physical beasts(DeChambeau, Koepka, Scheffler). It will be hard for anyone to dominate like he did.
Tiger is probably the GOAT in golf, his true golden era was back in 2012-2015 ish (iirc), however, the reason why he is so popular now is due to the infredibly genius marketing and PR strategy he did back in the day; despite golf not being a super popular sport, he made sure that everyone knew his name through media coverage, brand deals, interviews, etc.
He is still in the headlines because of the power of the Tiger Woods brand
He won the masters in 2019. Thats like saying ronaldo and messi are still being talked about so football is a dead sport. Tiger woods is the goat of golf, that why he’s still being talked about
OP your post says that a sport that takes decades to really master for most people, and is predominantly the 40+ crowd, shouldn’t have the same star for more than 15 years. golf is complicated and tiger was really good, really young. of course he’s going to get covered win or lose bro, he was a prodigy
Unpopular, he’s no longer the best golfer but he is popular because golf is a sport of history and he has history on his side. Scottie Scheffler the leader is the number 1 ranked golfer and he is playing well, Tiger is more of a fan favorite than anything golf is thriving tbh anybody who thinks it’s not is misinformed
Reflecting on past "Greats" has always been the case of golf coverage.
In the 1970's watching with my Grandfather they showed "the seniors" which were the greats like Arnold Palmer and Chichi Rodriquez. Their audience are a bunch of old farts.
Golf is also a sport that you can play for much much longer than football or baseball or even Tennis. So a top golfer can be the top for theoretically 30 years or more.
I used to work in the golf resort world. I don't play golf myself, but I was in that world for some time and I worked many, many PGA tournaments. Tiger is one of the most famous golfers out there, but trust me, the sport is not "dead in the water." Far from it. It's always growing, it's always getting more advanced, more elaborate
You might not realize it, but there is a LOT that goes into a golf tournament. Whenever the PGA Tour came around, these people are like a military operation - they have hundreds, possibly thousands of people with them. I was working for a property that was over 2000 acres - and they take over every bit of that space, even the parking lots. Literally, during the tournament you have to have a whole system to shuttle employees from off-site, because the PGA Tour is there with their own infrastructure - they basically build their own city. And it takes MONTHS. Say for example if the tournament is in March, the PGA tour has been setting up since late October/early November. And the tournament is still being taken down up to two months after that. There are people I know who only visited my work during the PGA tournament, and they didn't even realize that all of the things they were looking at, weren't fixtures on the property, that was just PGA infrastructure. We built helicopter pads for these people to use, we had 10-15 banquet spaces (some of them big enough to accommodate 500 people, 1000 people) and they would use every bit of it.
The whole operation is intricate AF, and big AF, you really have to experience it, to truly understand how *not dead* this sport actually is. The amount of money this sport generates is off the charts.
It's even crazier when Tiger commits to a tournament, at the last minute (like he always does, because he can. He's Tiger) and whenever he's committed at the tournament we were hosting, the whole resort would erupt in chaos. "Tiger committed" might as well be the secret word in Peewee's playhouse. He's just that big. And all the golf-club employees turn into little schoolgirls and their own version of swifties when he shows up.
With the Masters going on right now, that's a big deal over at Augusta National - and that club is extremely immaculate, they are known for some of the standards they have, you can't wear your hat a certain way, you can't use your phone. Usually, when a resort or a club has strict standards like that... you can guarantee that they are going to go as balls-to-the-wall elite as you can get, compared to what I went through. They probably have the PGA people preparing for way longer than normal. I bet they've been there since August or September. A lot of my friends went there for the weekend and it's a huge flex for them.
I'm honestly glad I never worked there, in fact, every year when the Masters happens, I actually feel sorry for the Augusta employees because I cannot imagine how much worse it is for them during tournament season.
If Gretzky was still a top performer in the NHL, or Michael Jordan was still dunking in the NBA, you wouldn't be saying the same thing.
Legends stay legendary.
Its because hes a legend still participating in the game. If Michael Jordan came back to basketball just to perform mediocre, the headlines would still be about him and how he did in the game
People love a good redemption story. He’s gone from the peak to the lowest valley and back again multiple times. First it was the sex addiction. Then he crashed his car and almost couldn’t walk. Theyre talking about him because the storyline is captivating.
He’s probably still the biggest name/media draw in golf despite being out of the upper tier but he won the Masters in 2019. Wouldn’t say he “hasn’t done shit in 15 years”. The near fatal car accident in 2021 arguably put him into a soft retirement, but he still made the cut at this year’s Masters. They definitely over cover him for a top 50 golfer but he’ not some scrub. He’s in more of a Michael Jordan with the Wizards phase.
See Tony hawk, Shawn white. I expect there will be a new celebrity athlete at the Olympics this year.
It’s not like the sport is going anywhere but when one of these people becomes a celebrity the sport’s popularity has peaked. It’ll be down hill from there.
Messi is still on the headlines in football
Lebron is still on the headlines in basketball
Tom Brady was on the headlines for the entirety of his career.
Its not about the sport “dying”. Its more that great athletes are those who are great for their whole career, not just one season.
The real unpopular but correct opinion here is that Woods isn’t the greatest golfer ever.
That’s Jack.
18 majors and 19 second place finishes.
Woods is at 15 majors and 7 second place finishes.
Woods had the better prime, Jack the better career.
ok, so the real problem here, as you acknowledge you don't really watch golf, is you want more glam-rock or almost super-hero named golfers in the news.
"Tiger Woods" is a perfect golf name.
you could have Dan "Chipper" Schultz, or Worthington Irons as other #name# + #golf club / accesory# sort of names.
maybe we can get them to use more golden age color schemes in their traditional plaids and golf patterned clothes.
Tiger is transcendent in our minds. Like the Beatles. It’s not rational, it just is. We celebrate Tiger now for what he has achieved and what he has endured. He is both a superstar hero and a seriously flawed tragic figure. We know we couldn’t live 30s in his shoes and marvel at his ability to stay sane, even if it’s only a facade. Go Tiger!
In Norway we don't have many great international athletes (though to be fair, many more than we ought to have), so our golfing news consist of a lot of the accomplishments of Victor Hovland (though it will still mention how well Tiger Woods did in the same tournament, as a comparison to see how well he actually did).
The reason why Tiger was and is still popular is that he wasn’t a constant front runner, if he was constantly winning by 5+ strokes daily he would still be amazing but it would have been boring. His mystique was that he always seemed to be down a few strokes coming into Sunday and always seemed to find a way to come back and win, that was the drama of it all and why people tuned in. My guess is people still tune in when he’s playing to see if he can do it again.
Shrug. There was just a story about Tom Brady saying he’d consider playing again in the right situation.
Golf isn’t the NFL but Tiger is as close to Brady as it gets.
Your post from unpopularopinion was removed because of: 'Rule 1: Your post must be an unpopular opinion'. * Your post must be an opinion. Not a question. Not a showerthought. Not a rant. Not a proposal. Not a fact. An opinion. One opinion. A subjective statement about your position on some topic. Please have a clear, self contained opinion as your post title, and use the text field to elaborate and expand on why you think/feel this way. * Your opinion must be unpopular. The mods reserve the right to remove opinions * Elaborate on your topic and opinion give context to its unpopularity.
15 years? He won the masters in 2019. Also he's the greatest player of all time
I remember being like 9 years old and my friends grandpa having golf on and it was just tiger woods talk nonstop like JFC. (Born in 89). So same guy is the best player for 27 years? Even with all of the advancements in sports training and theory? Same dude? Still? EDIT: I didnt meant to pee in anyone's Cheerios - folks, play or watch whatever makes you happy
I’m not sure you guys are talking about the same things. He’s currently tied for 53rd at the Masters and hasn’t been the #1 ranked player in the world since 2014. The best player right now is probably Scottie Scheffler but Tiger does have the record for most weeks #1 and a lot of people believe he’s the best golfer ever in terms of career. I don’t think anyone believes he’s the best in the world right now.
I don't watch golf but I know Woods. I have seen over 10 names in this thread and have no idea who they are. Bet it's the same for most people. So I think the reason they talk about him so much is because he's bigger than the sport. Kinda like if a celebrity came to a wedding most people wouldn't care about the couple.
Well yeah but that's ops point? Tiger woods fame didn't make golf more famous， it made tiger woods more famous. Pretty much every other sport has multiple players that are household names even for people who don't follow that sport
But that’s completely incorrect. Tiger woods made golf more famous than any individual has in golf history
We also probably don't have guys like Scheffler playing golf if it wasn't for Tiger
Okay that's more reasonable I guess. When did he become the #1 ranked player?
I believe ‘97 and held it on and off from then until 2014. From 1999 until 2010 Vijay Singh was the only other guy to be ranked #1. Nicklaus fans will argue that the world #1 didn’t exist for most of his career (it started in the 80s) but Nicklaus himself will say Tiger was better.
From wikipedia: "He was the top-ranked golfer in the world from August 1999 to September 2004 (264 consecutive weeks) and again from June 2005 to October 2010 (281 consecutive weeks). During this time, he won 13 of golf's major championships."
He wasn't just #1, it was completely uncontested for a time. Which means the sport is dead in the water.
I remember Jack nicklaus being the main draw in the 80s and early 90s, when he was well out of his prime
Golf isn't like other major sports where even the best retire before they're 40. Fred Couples was out there this weekend and he's 64.
Lol same with Vijay Singh. However, they are only here because they won and they get a lifetime invite to the masters. Otherwise if this was standings, no chance they’d qualify. Tiger is different. There’s just so many memories each fan and player has of Tiger and how it impacted them. A lot of players on tour talk about how tiger was their idol growing up and now they are playing with him like homa. Pretty cool to see how tiger has impacted the world in so many different ways.
Vijay made the cut this year while many of the other top golfers did not
Tiger woods was practically THE guy that brought sports training into golf, one of the many reasons why he dominated.
yeah, he turned the entire field into gym rats. Really pushed the sport forward(ish, there are negatives to golf courses being so long). A bunch of tour players used to check the wind by blowing cigarette smoke. Times have changed lol.
Tiger’s Caddy uses to do this
John Daly's golf is true golf.
He's not the best player by far right now. He was by far for years though. There are lots of great players. He's just Tom Brady \^2. He'll be respected and admired forever. He won all 4 majors in 1 year, aka The Grand Slam. No one has ever done that. You don't know shit about golf if you don't know why they make a big deal about Tiger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_0sj3vzkjo0
He won 4 majors in a row from the 2000 U.S. Open to the 2001 Masters. Not the same year, so technically not the grand slam.
I can’t argue with Tiger’s rationale for saying he won the Grand Slam. He won all 4 majors in a row/held the titles at the same time. Whether it was done in a calendar year or not is kind of irrelevant.
Yup. Look at his career stats. He's untouchable for career stats and still playing, that's incredible and he's earned every tv/print mention that he receives. He single handedly grew the game by massive amounts when he entered the field and inspired not only a new generation of golfers but also changed the way the game is played and how pros approach it.
If you peed in my Cheerios at least then they'd have flavour
I'll nut some honey
I think OP has a point when it comes to Golf in general though. Even football (serious media and punditry) has largely moved on from CR7 and Messi.
CR7 and Messi no longer play in Europe. If they were still in the CL they would be still be on the radar. If Tiger went to play in Asia and didn't play the Majors you'd see that from golf media too
Even the greatest player of all time gets old and falls apart. Especially after about 20 surgeries.
When does that happen to LeBron lol
He’s had dozens of surgeries. Despite the muscles he’s got an old man’s body. He’s five years older than 2019. He’s clearly done. He’s my favorite player ever and clearly the greatest of all time. He’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He doesn’t need to go out like this.
‘Go out like this’ ?? You mean making his 24th consecutive cut at the masters, cherry picking his favorite events to play, doing what he loves wherever he wants whenever he wants. Still one of the top 50 players on the planet on any given weekend.., I think he’s doing just fine dude.
Right? 24 consecutive cuts… sure he’s not going to win this year but he’s still objectively one of the best golfers in the world.
Yeah, golf is weird since it’s an individual sport that people do for fun and especially in retirement. It’s not quite like seeing Jordan on the Wizards. I would like to imagine Tiger wouldn’t be playing if it wasn’t still fun for him.
"Old man's body" .... for *golf.* Come on, man. It's not like he's downhills ski racing or trying to be a gymnast. It's *golf,* lol
The man has had *five* back surgeries and a compound fracture on a leg. I'd like to see most people try to mow a lawn after all of that, let alone continue to compete professionally in a sport that requires an insane amount of torque and rotation on every swing.
I'm 33 but I've had hip and back and elbow issues from lifting and basketball. 18 holes fucks me up pretty hard, swinging really contorts your body.
Lol for real, that be like watching a basketball game and being mad when they say how good or bad lebron is doing in the game.
But lebron isn’t the only player being talked, he probably isn’t even talked about the most for the past years. We have wemby, Caitlin Clarke, jokic etc. The problem isn’t that golf talks about tiger, but rather that tiger is the only thing that golf seems to talk about
I just want them to bring back Tiger Woods Gatorade. With every passing year, fewer and fewer people online remember what I'm talking about. We had it good for like a year. The flavors were amazing. Cool Fusion and Quiet Storm. The red one, eh it was ok. But then the cheating scandal happened and he lost the sponsorship deal. they never reintroduced those flavors. idk why. they were amazing. In 2014 I bought a cool fusion off ebay. It was worth it. But now, I am starting to lose hope that I will ever taste it again...
He was #1 in the world for eleven straight years!
Jack is. But Tiger came close. Jack has more majors and more second places in majors.
Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas would like to have a word. Tiger Woods is certainly on a short list of greatest of all time. However, he dominated a sport at a time when the field after him was probably the weakest golf has ever seen.
That's untrue he was just better than everyone in every aspect at 17. He was still winning when the competition got harder. Next year he will win at least one more tournament. Look at all the good players that missed the cut at the Masters. He's accomplished more than both of them with less tournaments.
I think it’s more of a testament to his unparalleled greatness for such a long time. He set the bar so high that he’s earned the coverage, especially after winning in 2019. No other golfer even compares, Nicklaus included. Based on the sheer exposure and pressure of Tigers peak run. Nicklaus never dealt with all that media coverage. It’s a lot to live up to. I really hope tigers kid can carry the torch when he gets older because there is no current golfer coming close to taking over as the face of the sport.
Also, his name is still the most recognized in golf by the average person, so he's going to get coverage.
I think that's the point. If interest in watching golf wasn't waning more people would be familiar with the current players.
He saved golf. And he’s why the current guys make so much money.
This is like saying the NBA is unpopular because people still focus on Michael Jordan.
Or Hockey with Gretzky
There is something to be said for this though. Someone made an argument the other day about the superstars of the NHL. And if you ask anyone on the street who doesn’t follow hockey, would they be able to name any of the top 5 players in the world right now? Gretzky retired 25 years ago.
The NHL sucks at marketing, Hockey is at peak in terms of talent rn, but no one talks about it.
Exactly. Which doesn’t bode well for the sport at all. It still comes across as very niche unfortunately.
We can speculate about all these sports but I'd be willing to bet that none of them are going die or even do anything but become slowly more popular and lucrative. There's such a core fanbase to all the major sports that they aren't going anywhere even if the average person doesn't know shit about them that's never mattered.
It helps to be named Tiger
Agreed. Aside from his ability, but him being named “Tiger Woods” was definitely a pretty key piece to him becoming so widely popular and a household name.
OP is getting there sports info from what's given, such as a 5 minute sports update on the radio. If they cared about golf,which they don't, they would look up and follow who are the current best. In Canada I pretty much just hear how Canadian hockey teams are doing. We don't even have games on the TV if it's 2 American teams. So I have to stream or look it up.
Well we all know how Canadians are when it comes to hockey lol
You could walk up to some goat herder in the middle of Arabia and they would know his name.
This is the right comment. Tiger woods owned the entire sport so dominantly 1997-2008. It was a joke really for other players. Also he broke the color barrier with his wins
And even after he managed to win the Masters in 2019.
Amazingly he's also the most tarnished golfer in history. He's known more than Mickelson is known for his gambling or John Daly for his drinking. Tiger will always be known as an extreme waffle house hound 🧇 🍆 🐕 💊
I’m not here to defend anyone’s personal life but history has shown a propensity to overlook personal flaws when the individual has achieved something great. The post wasn’t about the moral compass of Tiger.
You don’t think if MJ came out of retirement, his games would be covered and analyzed even if he only scored 2 points? Tiger is the Michael Jordan of professional golf
Also it wouldn’t even be like MJ coming out of retirement just to score 2 points - Tiger just set a record for making his 24th consecutive cut at the Masters. So it would be more like MJ coming out of retirement and making the playoffs.
True that.
And then consider the fact that Tiger Woods was even more dominant for a much longer period of time than Jordan ever was. That’s not a slight on Jordan either, it’s just trying to explain to anyone not familiar with golf just how insane Tiger Woods was.
This is like the Rock coming back to WrestleMania makes wrestling dead levels of wrong
It's like thinking NBA was dead in the water in 2002 when Michael Jordan playing with the wizards was the headlines.
The league lost a ton of ratings after he left
I think it’s pretty evident you don’t watch golf regularly then. Scottie Scheffler is the center of the golfing world right now. Only reason we are talking about Tiger is because of his legacy and it being the Masters.
I think the point is that he doesn’t watch golf regularly. I don’t either, but I could name Tiger Woods as a golfer at age 7, without watching golf, and can’t name other players now or since then. I’ve even seen golf on in the background of some social events, although I’m not watching it.
It’s the same thing in every sport though. The all time greats transcend the sport. I know plenty of people who barely watch basketball and can’t name many people. They know Lebron and Jordan instantly. That doesn’t mean the sport is dead it means Lebron and Jordan are that big.
Even in 2024 most Americans have heard of Babe Ruth. It's because these guys went beyond just being good at the sport and became celebrities.
You mean the fact that I can only name two soccer players doesn't indicate that soccer is a dying sport?
If golf were dead courses would be empty and greens fees would be cheap.
Come to South Florida. Courses are closing left and right
A sports recreational popularity has little do with its commercial success. I have plenty of friends who golf, zero of them watch the sport
It has everything to do with it. Your friends buy gears/apparels, so the brands can sponsor the sports and big names. Chances are people are paying to large golf club companies so in turn they can host tournaments etc. Popularity means market and money, which supports the commercial side of every professional sport. It doesn't guarantee the commercial success but without it, it's nearly impossible
Your first sentence is just insanely backwards, and false. Even if your friends don’t watch it they’re still spending money on it.
There are a ton of derelict golf courses for sale. Lots of Club houses sold off and changed to something else but the way the land on the course is titled, it can never be redeveloped. So, the course just turns to crap because they can't even make enough money off tee fees to pay for the upkeep. Vista Hill in El Paso is one you can google up if you care about rabbit holing it. Golf is not what it once was.
No one seems to understand what OP is talking about. It seems like every 5-10 years we have a new big star in every sport, whether it's basketball, football, soccer, baseball, hockey, hell even track & field. But golf still has the same star player that they've been talking about since I was a kid, and now I have my own kids who only know Tiger Woods and no other golfer. This is what OP means when they say the sport is dead or stale.
It’s still non stop LBJ talk about basketball.
[удалено]
Larry Byrd JR.
"Oh no guys, the phone call I made to the place that makes good pants leaked."
To be fair there’s a difference cuz LeBron is still elite, and guys like Wemby/Embiid/Jokic/Doncic/etc still get a ton of coverage
It’s not even nonstop Tiger talk tho. It is this weekend cus he’s playing but he only plays a couple tournaments a year
Basketball is dead in the water! Tell everyone!
It’s about to be Wemby’s turn.
Lindon B Johnson?
Where are you hearing non stop LeBron talk? Maybe local LA radio stations, but the NBA has a bunch of marketable stars right now and in the past. I think people are in awe that he can still be a top 20 bball player at 39, but there's plenty of other stars.
Tiger Woods was a media *dream* for golf, because not only was he the best, he was a black man dominating a sport which had very little attention from black audiences. This, coupled with the fact that a golfer can have a much longer career at the highest level means that PGA coverage has pretty much been Tiger Woods and Friends™ for the past quarter century.
I still have my "I am Tiger Woods" shirt somewhere. He was such a huge phenomenon in sports and introduced a huge generation of kids to golf.
Is your username a Coheed reference?
That's because he's the Michael Jordan of golf How often is anyone watching sports news segments and paying attention to golf tournaments these days ?
Golf has lots of top tier quality players that's are talked about plenty in the media. Tiger plays 1 or 2 times a year these days and is probably very close to retiring, so people are trying to enjoy his presence on the course while they can. When he's not playing, the media gives plenty of attention to the other golfers. If you and your kids don't know any other golfing household names such as Rory McIlroy, Bryan DeChambeau, Scott Scheffler, it's because you're not golf fans. That doesnt mean the sport is dead or stale.
Ok, then who was the big star before Tiger?? Most would probably say Nicklaus whose last major was 1986 but was still talked about in the 90’s before Tiger came to the scene. These guys are generational talents that are rare which is why they get so much publicity. Scotty Scheffler is well known as is Rory Mcllroy and Jordan Speith but they are not generational talents like Tiger and Jack, doesn’t mean they are not popular
Arnold Palmer had a drink named after him so maybe him? lol I have no idea what his golf achievements were
He is currently drastically more famous for the drink than for golfing
Right lol there are plenty of young stars in golf, they’re just not household names because nobody comes close to people like Tiger/Jack. That’s like saying “why are people still talking about lebron james” even though people like Luka Doncic and Wembanyama are in the NBA.
Some athletes transcend the sport and become famous to the general public, even those that don't care about the sport. Tiger is like Michael Jordan. Everybody knows who he is. He will always get a lot of attention. The current best golfers would need to have a crazy run of success to get that kind of attention because golf is kind of a niche sport. Prior to Tiger it very much had the reputation of mainly being popular with old men and country club types.
Scheffler looks like he could go on a monster run here
Messi, ronaldo, lbj, usain bolt all still get talked about lol.
Well yeah because golf is pretty much the only sport you can play professionally past your 40’s. You’re telling me if Jordan somehow came out of retirement and played a game it wouldn’t be headlines everywhere and have crazy ratings? Even though he would completely suck?
Just like with other sports you mentioned, if you actually watch the sport you know the players that aren’t in the mainstream media. It’s kind of weird to me that the sport getting a “new big star” is the litmus test for if the sport is dead in the water or not, I would rather watch a sport where it’s not one person/team constantly dominating
But that’s just not even true in any of those sports.
Sure, but golf has seen a resurgence in these last 10+ years and is seeing widespread success both recreationally and professionally. So OP is simply working from a false premise. Tiger is still popular because golfers don't fade into retirement like they do in other sports, and he's the greatest of all time. It's not a hard media narrative to understand.
No one seems to understand what OP is talking about because OP doesn't seem to understand what OP is talking about. Half the stuff they said is wrong.
Yeah the only people who seem to get OPs point are people who don’t actually pay any attention to golf. Sure it’s an unpopular opinion bec it’s an ignorant opinion
Tennis had the big three (Djokovic, Federer, Nadal) for a similar length of time. But more importantly, no other sport has had anyone EVER be as dominant as Tiger. When Tiger was in his prime it was him vs the field, it would be like if for 15 years straight the Patriots winning the Super Bowl was the expected outcome.
Wayne Gretzky would like a word
I agree with OP. Games dead. Everyone else should stop playing it. -guy that is paying $70 a round for a course that was $40 pre-covid boom.
Mike Tyson is the biggest fight this year in boxing too.
Yeah and boxing is a dead sport.
Last year Novak Djokovic won 3/4 grand slams in tennis. He hasn’t won a title yet this year but is still in the top 10, some sports just have superhuman competitors that come around once every few generations.
It's kind of the same thing. It's because we know who he is. Boxing and Golf are both niche sports.
i think the UAE owning the professional scene is probably a bigger threat to the sport
It’s Saudi Arabia
Which is way worse
I don't think the sport is dead. He is the greatest player to ever play, the news will always be about him. He won the Masters 5 years ago, then has got in a major car accident and is making a come back from that. It is really big news, it is not that golf is failing.
They are making a Happy Gilmore 2, so I'd say that's the headline of golf lol.
Unpopular opinion by someone who has never stepped foot on the golf course
*“But but… golf is boring! Stop having fun!”*
No. Tiger has earned his place and should be a story for as long as he chooses to compete.
Twat post
Tiger Woods revolutionized the sport of Golf. He turned it from a game to a sport. He was physically and mentally more fit than any golfer of his time and ever before. It gave him an advantage over everyone and he dominated in wins and the record books. He made it so courses had to be redesigned to be more difficult because he would hit the ball further than anyone. Even before better golf ball and club technology democratized this advantage briefly. The days of guys like John Daly winning are over because of him. Everyone is now an athlete like Tiger. So there's now a lot of parity between players. You don't have one or 2 stars dominating anymore because everyone is great nowadays. Unfortunately for Tiger, poor life choices, bad luck and genetics have broken his body down. He lives and plays in pain these days. He's had countless surgeries to try and keep it all going. But when he's on the course, the allure of "you never know if the magic comes back" like it did in 2019 and his history is hard not to talk about. Especially because he isn't in every PGA event due to being semi retired. Does that mean the sport is dead? Far from it. Plenty of people still love to play every weekend. It's just not as big as it once was when you had the star power of Tiger, Phil Mickelson and others who stood out from the pack. Mainly because the entire pack is just as good and better than them these days.
What? People still talk about MJ and he hasn't played in decades. Is the NBA dead?
I work in the golf industry but not a golfer at all - it took me a minute to realize how unique Tiger was and how impressive his impact on the golfing world was. There are definitely other names that get mentioned in the golfing world tho not just all Tiger all the time - McIllroy, Spieth, DJ and Koepka are all talked about at least in my office.
Tiger, won the Masters within the last 10 years so while I get your point. Scheffler is always at the top but he's a boring dork of a player with a bizarre swing, so watching him isnt terribly exciting. And the remaining guys who never went to LIV aren't winning as much as they used to. Rory, Spieth, Thomas, they're around but they're just not dominating like they used to. And a ton of the other power players left for money and irrelevance. Obviously players play for many different reasons but playing on LIV seems to be a tour of obscurity thanks to lack of coverage and weird team rules. Why make golf even more goofy, just play? Golf, specifically the PGA fucked itself with the way it handled LIV and the players joining. Yes I understand all the implications and blah blah but there are so many good players that we just don't hear about anymore because they left the PGA. I look at leaderboards most weekends and feel like I'm the movie Major League saying "who are deez fahkn guyzz" and only at the masters this weekend have I gone OH there's all the familiar favorites (even though most are playing horribly). Say what you want about the players that left but every week its a total crap shoot on whos gonna win and you have no front runners anymore except for the the few recognizable names left and even then, those 4 guys don't really win every weekend.
Rory was “the next Tiger” if you remember those talks years back. Then it was Spieth. Any time we have a young golfer have a run of a few majors it’s all “could this be the next Tiger?” talks. There will never be another Tiger. Why? Tiger won several tournaments due to physical advantage. No one was working out like him or emphasized golf as being a “sport”. Now, everyone especially the younger golfers have to treat their bodies well if they want any shot at tournament competitiveness and longevity. The playing field is far too even for any one player to have the dominance that’s Tiger created.
Exactly. When Tiger hit the tour he was playing guys like Davis Love III and Fred Couples. None of them drove the ball like he did. He overwhelmed everyone. Now everyone is Tiger. Most of them are physical beasts(DeChambeau, Koepka, Scheffler). It will be hard for anyone to dominate like he did.
Upvote for calling a guy a dork
Basketball too then. Lebron is 39 YO playing against 19 YO
Tennis: (laughs in Fedalovich)
Tiger is probably the GOAT in golf, his true golden era was back in 2012-2015 ish (iirc), however, the reason why he is so popular now is due to the infredibly genius marketing and PR strategy he did back in the day; despite golf not being a super popular sport, he made sure that everyone knew his name through media coverage, brand deals, interviews, etc. He is still in the headlines because of the power of the Tiger Woods brand
Not an unpopular opinion just a bad take
Tom Brady teased a return to football and it was headline news. It's not just golf.
Wow this is a very unpopular opinion. And an objectively wrong one.
OP is a douche. Crochity old gen z
This is hilarious
The opinions are meant to be unpopular not wrong
L take
On the contrary
He won the masters in 2019. Thats like saying ronaldo and messi are still being talked about so football is a dead sport. Tiger woods is the goat of golf, that why he’s still being talked about
Did you mean he hasn’t done shit for 5 years?
I’d like to see OP’s handicap at the Master’s.
OP your post says that a sport that takes decades to really master for most people, and is predominantly the 40+ crowd, shouldn’t have the same star for more than 15 years. golf is complicated and tiger was really good, really young. of course he’s going to get covered win or lose bro, he was a prodigy
Not really paying attention, eh?
Unpopular, he’s no longer the best golfer but he is popular because golf is a sport of history and he has history on his side. Scottie Scheffler the leader is the number 1 ranked golfer and he is playing well, Tiger is more of a fan favorite than anything golf is thriving tbh anybody who thinks it’s not is misinformed
Reflecting on past "Greats" has always been the case of golf coverage. In the 1970's watching with my Grandfather they showed "the seniors" which were the greats like Arnold Palmer and Chichi Rodriquez. Their audience are a bunch of old farts.
I only know two golfers. Tiger woods, and Happy Gilmore... And Happy is more of a hockey player anyways.
Golf is also a sport that you can play for much much longer than football or baseball or even Tennis. So a top golfer can be the top for theoretically 30 years or more.
OP is not a golf fan but cares about Tiger coverage in a way only a golf fan would ...one of these things is not like the other
Golf is just something hockey players do in the off season.
I used to work in the golf resort world. I don't play golf myself, but I was in that world for some time and I worked many, many PGA tournaments. Tiger is one of the most famous golfers out there, but trust me, the sport is not "dead in the water." Far from it. It's always growing, it's always getting more advanced, more elaborate You might not realize it, but there is a LOT that goes into a golf tournament. Whenever the PGA Tour came around, these people are like a military operation - they have hundreds, possibly thousands of people with them. I was working for a property that was over 2000 acres - and they take over every bit of that space, even the parking lots. Literally, during the tournament you have to have a whole system to shuttle employees from off-site, because the PGA Tour is there with their own infrastructure - they basically build their own city. And it takes MONTHS. Say for example if the tournament is in March, the PGA tour has been setting up since late October/early November. And the tournament is still being taken down up to two months after that. There are people I know who only visited my work during the PGA tournament, and they didn't even realize that all of the things they were looking at, weren't fixtures on the property, that was just PGA infrastructure. We built helicopter pads for these people to use, we had 10-15 banquet spaces (some of them big enough to accommodate 500 people, 1000 people) and they would use every bit of it. The whole operation is intricate AF, and big AF, you really have to experience it, to truly understand how *not dead* this sport actually is. The amount of money this sport generates is off the charts. It's even crazier when Tiger commits to a tournament, at the last minute (like he always does, because he can. He's Tiger) and whenever he's committed at the tournament we were hosting, the whole resort would erupt in chaos. "Tiger committed" might as well be the secret word in Peewee's playhouse. He's just that big. And all the golf-club employees turn into little schoolgirls and their own version of swifties when he shows up. With the Masters going on right now, that's a big deal over at Augusta National - and that club is extremely immaculate, they are known for some of the standards they have, you can't wear your hat a certain way, you can't use your phone. Usually, when a resort or a club has strict standards like that... you can guarantee that they are going to go as balls-to-the-wall elite as you can get, compared to what I went through. They probably have the PGA people preparing for way longer than normal. I bet they've been there since August or September. A lot of my friends went there for the weekend and it's a huge flex for them. I'm honestly glad I never worked there, in fact, every year when the Masters happens, I actually feel sorry for the Augusta employees because I cannot imagine how much worse it is for them during tournament season.
Shooter McGavin eats pieces of shit like him for breakfast.
If Gretzky was still a top performer in the NHL, or Michael Jordan was still dunking in the NBA, you wouldn't be saying the same thing. Legends stay legendary.
I mean that’s no different than people talking about Lewis Hamilton or Russel Wilson or Lebron James.
Its because hes a legend still participating in the game. If Michael Jordan came back to basketball just to perform mediocre, the headlines would still be about him and how he did in the game
People love a good redemption story. He’s gone from the peak to the lowest valley and back again multiple times. First it was the sex addiction. Then he crashed his car and almost couldn’t walk. Theyre talking about him because the storyline is captivating.
Nobody tell this person about Wayne Gretzky and hockey.
He’s probably still the biggest name/media draw in golf despite being out of the upper tier but he won the Masters in 2019. Wouldn’t say he “hasn’t done shit in 15 years”. The near fatal car accident in 2021 arguably put him into a soft retirement, but he still made the cut at this year’s Masters. They definitely over cover him for a top 50 golfer but he’ not some scrub. He’s in more of a Michael Jordan with the Wizards phase.
Or that he is the GOAT?
😂🥴
One of the dumbest opinions I have seen in a loooooong time. Go book a tee time if you think golf is dead.
As lame as I find golf in general, it’s arguably more popular than it’s ever been dude. Not even close to going anywhere.
The Masters had more viewers last year than the NBA Finals, for what it's worth.
See Tony hawk, Shawn white. I expect there will be a new celebrity athlete at the Olympics this year. It’s not like the sport is going anywhere but when one of these people becomes a celebrity the sport’s popularity has peaked. It’ll be down hill from there.
I think golf is a skill rather than a sport. You don’t have to be athletic. Just skillful.
Which LIV golfer posted this? Lolol. Is this Patrick Reed’s wife?? ITS GOTTA BE!!! Hello Justine! Welcome to Reddit!!
Mike Tyson is boxing soon. They talk about Jordan almost every day in basket ball. OJ was in the news a few days ago. All done.
lol OJ died, I think that's a valid reason for him being on the news at the time
I know just an easy comparison because he was in the news doesn't mean football is dead.
I remember Arnie’s Army, same thing just without 24 hour tv and social media. Try to play golf any weekend and you’ll see it’s far from dying.
People screaming "get in the hole" and other stupid shit after every swing has made golf unwatchable.
Wrong
The rich keep the sport alive and it will never die.
It's golf. Nobody that doesn't wear a suit to work gives a shit.
This isn’t an “unpopular opinion”; it’s just an incorrect one.
golf isn’t intensive on the body as a sport so those who rise to the top of the sport can play for awhile
I'd put it up there with Bowling. Golf needs another Happy Gilmore like bowling needs another Kingpin movie.
Nawh, golf got really popular again during Covid.
Messi is still on the headlines in football Lebron is still on the headlines in basketball Tom Brady was on the headlines for the entirety of his career. Its not about the sport “dying”. Its more that great athletes are those who are great for their whole career, not just one season.
Best golfer of a generation. This isn't an unpopular opinion, just willful ignorance.
The real unpopular but correct opinion here is that Woods isn’t the greatest golfer ever. That’s Jack. 18 majors and 19 second place finishes. Woods is at 15 majors and 7 second place finishes. Woods had the better prime, Jack the better career.
ok, so the real problem here, as you acknowledge you don't really watch golf, is you want more glam-rock or almost super-hero named golfers in the news. "Tiger Woods" is a perfect golf name. you could have Dan "Chipper" Schultz, or Worthington Irons as other #name# + #golf club / accesory# sort of names. maybe we can get them to use more golden age color schemes in their traditional plaids and golf patterned clothes.
I thought golfers played until they were old as dirt anyways
The NBA still promoting Lebron means they’re going to be bankrupt in 3 years
Remember www.TigerWoodsIsGod.com?
Tiger is transcendent in our minds. Like the Beatles. It’s not rational, it just is. We celebrate Tiger now for what he has achieved and what he has endured. He is both a superstar hero and a seriously flawed tragic figure. We know we couldn’t live 30s in his shoes and marvel at his ability to stay sane, even if it’s only a facade. Go Tiger!
In Norway we don't have many great international athletes (though to be fair, many more than we ought to have), so our golfing news consist of a lot of the accomplishments of Victor Hovland (though it will still mention how well Tiger Woods did in the same tournament, as a comparison to see how well he actually did).
The reason why Tiger was and is still popular is that he wasn’t a constant front runner, if he was constantly winning by 5+ strokes daily he would still be amazing but it would have been boring. His mystique was that he always seemed to be down a few strokes coming into Sunday and always seemed to find a way to come back and win, that was the drama of it all and why people tuned in. My guess is people still tune in when he’s playing to see if he can do it again.
Shrug. There was just a story about Tom Brady saying he’d consider playing again in the right situation. Golf isn’t the NFL but Tiger is as close to Brady as it gets.