11/7/2023 0 Comments Tiger woods pga tour 2005 intro![]() ![]() Post war, in 1946, American icon Sam Snead took away the Claret Jug from St Andrews, his first prize of US$150 out of the first-ever US$1,000 prize fund, but men’s professional golf remained a career fraught with uncertainty and far short – even allowing for inflation – of the eye-watering sums on offer today. American Walter Hagen, considered by many to have been the greatest player of the inter-war years won just US$75 for each of his four Open Championship victories, while, immediately after the cessation of hostilities, the great Bobbly Locke accumulated just US$1,900 for his quartet of Claret Jug wins.Įven the late, great Peter Thomson, five times an Open Champion – including three-in-a-row in the 1950s, to this day, even in the era of Tiger Woods domination, still a record of the modern era – amassed only US$5,500 from his unprecedented domination and retention of the Claret Jug. ![]() ![]() Making a sustainable living out of playing golf was far from rewarding. Golf at both professional and recreational levels remained in effect a niche, cottage industry, largely the preserve of the entitled middle classes either side of World War II. It was 1892 before the US$100 barrier was broken, ironically English amateur Harold Hilton earning the title of Champion Golfer of the Year – but due to his amateur status, he eschewed the 35-dollar winner’s fee – content it seemed to be taking the Claret Jug home, the total prize fund was still only US$500 when ‘Silver Scot,’ Tommy Armour banked an unprecedented US$100 for his victory at Carnoustie in 1931, less than a century ago. Riding on the back of the great man’s dominant exploits, and unprecedented successes, every aspect of the game would benefit from the ‘Woods effect,’ from participation numbers, media rights and golf equipment and apparel sales all went through the roof, as Woods-inspired ‘Golf-fashion’ seduced recreational players and fans all around the world.īunker Mentality examines the commercial bounce from the sporting impact of one of the most significant sporting phenomena of modern times, and, while acknowledging his short and medium term legacy is assured, supported by evidence, but with commercial comet now in terminal decline, concludes that when Woods is rightly remembered as golf’s greatest bankable asset, his influence is on the wane, and with no obvious successor currently capable of taking on his towering presence, universal appeal and magnetic charisma, and with the rival LIV Golf far from ‘dead in the water,’ the mainstream men’s pro game may discover that the ‘Tiger Economy’ was, when set in the context of one-hundred-years of professional golf, the best years of its long and colourful history.įor much of its early years of the 15 th, 16 th and 17 th centuries, on the east coast of Scotland and beyond, a few select places around the UK linked largely to the aristocracy and military top brass, golf was the preserve of the entitled elite and even once marginally more accessible to a few members of the working class who excelled in the early iteration that was the epitome of the royal and ancient game, playing for money – mostly modest wagers made between rivals – was still considered by those who ran the fledgling sort to be rather uncouth and unsavoury.Įven once the embryonic Open Championship got underway at Prestwick in Ayrshire, Scotland in 1860, there was not a penny piece in prize money on offer indeed, it was four years before princely sum of a US$10 prize fund was put up, dusty records revealing Willie Park Snr beat arch rival Old Tom Morris to pocket the first prize of US$5, hardly a King’s Ransom. As men’s professional golf emerged from its somewhat quaint and sedentary early epoch with the Mark H McCormack-inspired ‘Big 3’ of Palmer, Player and Nicklaus taking advantage of a post war increasingly affluent baby-boomer country club demographic and the rollout of colour TV, by the time Eldrick Tont ‘Tiger’ Woods appeared like a dervish in the last knockings of the 20th century, there was certainly further scope for the commercialisation and monetisation of the elite, professional side of the royal and ancient game.Īcross the board, from prize money and appearance fees to player endorsement income, media rights sky-rocketed exponentially as the swashbuckling mixed-race Californian-born phenomenon hit the ground running, his influence on the finances of the PGA TOUR and its smaller cousins around the world soon bolstered beyond their wildest dreams, irrespective of his highly-selective choice of tournaments, personal peccadilloes and the subsequent decline of his injury-ravaged physique. ![]()
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