re: PGA Championship Thread - Justin Thomas wins after three-hole playoff

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I like Tiger but to me it is hilarious how ESPN covers him.

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Is it? In 25 years, he has generated BILLIONS of dollars of revenue for ESPN, Nike, The PGA Tour itself and all its sponsors. He’s made more millionaires than probably anybody in sports history. The dude who finishes #20 in purse money this year, will probably win more than Jack Nicklaus did his entire career. There are hundreds of guys that before Tiger would either be selling insurance or making $40k as their local club pro because ranked 100th(ish) in the world would have forced them to retire a long time ago, who are now multimillionaires, flying all over in private jets to play the greatest and most beautiful golf courses in the world with OT 8s and 9s by their side.

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ESPN: "Golf really needs another star to take over in Tigers place"

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I’ve never heard anybody say this earnestly. Because they know it will never happen. It can’t. There may wind up being somebody better than him, but there will never be anyone to recreate anything resembling the phenomenon that was and still is Tiger Woods. Mainly because he made golf cool and there are way more people playing and way more really, really talented guys on tour.

There are a ton of incredibly talented, young guys out there. Guys that if they were born 20 years earlier, could have been all-time top 10 type guys. But there’s so many of them that they’ll cannibalize themselves more likely, which on a micro, week-to-week level is really fun to watch, but kind of a bummer on a macro level because we may not see the historical rivals because there’s just too many of them. But they’re there because 1) Tiger made golf cool, and 2) made the money so good that you can be ranked like 75th in the world and have an incredible quality of life.

I’d be watching anyway, but I don’t think it’s “funny” how ESPN covers Tiger. It’s financially responsible. Because there are a bunch of middle-aged men like me (who signed up for the ESPN app in the 1st place to watch coverage of a major) who got up early to watch a dude about my age, 13 shots off the lead with zero chance of winning, hack it and hobble around the golf course (and somehow still make scores). It’s actually incredible. Probably more so than we even realize.

(And this is not a Tiger arse-kissing post. It’s more about the 25-year phenomenon that was and still is Tiger Woods and how we still may not be far enough away from it to appreciate it’s cultural and financial impact.)