Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)
In the space of just thirteen seconds, Tiger Woods created, what would come to be, one of the most memorable moments in his illustrious career.
No, it’s not the chip-in at the Masters back in ‘05 – that’s sixteen seconds, and the fact you don’t know that offhand is embarrassing. Nor is it the putt, and ensuing epic celebration, to send the ‘08 U.S Open to a Monday playoff – that’s … ok, well that happens to be thirteen seconds as well, but it’s not the one I’m talking about.
No, the moment I’m talking about is from way back in August 1996, when everyone was happily condoning the fact the Spice Girls were clearly trespassing on private property and dancing on a staircase without any visible permit – and, again, if you don’t know offhand that I’m talking about the “Wannabe” music video, well, at this point, you may as well just leave because, as you can tell, this is clearly where all the super cool kids are hanging out.
See, a day after winning the U.S. Amateur Championship for the third year in a row and announcing the fact he intended to turn professional, a twenty year old Tiger Woods, wearing a striped Nike polo shirt in the quintessential ‘baggy’ fit of the 90’s, approached a small podium that had been placed in front of a sponsor covered backdrop and looked out at the crowd of photographers and members of the press gathered before him.
And in those brief few seconds, just before he launched into the speech that he’d prepared, there was a moment where the insanity of the occasion he found himself in drew an almost disbelieving smile from Tiger, followed by – in a wonderfully unscripted moment – him uttering a line that would, without him ever swinging a club as a professional, be the first clip of many in his highlight reel of a career:
“I guess … ‘Hello, World’, huh?”
What I’ve been wondering, though – and this has especially been the case since his wins at the Tour Championship, the Masters and, now, last night’s historical 82nd win – is what if Tiger hadn’t said that? And I don’t mean what if he had said something different or just gone straight into the speech that he’d prepared: I mean, what if the day after the ‘96 U.S. Amateur Championship there was never a press conference at all … because what if Tiger Woods never turned pro?
Now, obviously, such a decision would have inevitably led to a press conference regardless – where, as you can imagine, the general tone of the questioning would have probably boiled down to, “WHAT?! ARE YOU INSANE?! WHY?!” – but, for the sake of the 480 plus words I’ve already written up this point, just humour me.
So, there’s no press conference about him turning pro; which means no ‘Raising the Roof’ in Phoenix in ‘97; no mauling the field at the Masters a few months later; no ‘Tiger Slam’; no anything. It’s all gone. His entire career gone the same way as that of the Avengers at the end of “Infinity War” … i.e. to dust.
Pop-culture. I know it.
Now, over his near quarter of a century on tour, it’s been well documented the seismic-level impact that Tiger Woods has had on professional golf. From money; to drawing new fans to the game; to influencing how golfers and the game itself are viewed; to … well, money, again; the landscape of modern golf as we know it can all be traced back to Tiger Woods and the starting point which was that press conference.
But with him being such an integral figure in creating what we all recognise as professional golf in 2019, to then try and imagine what golf would look like if Tiger had decided to become “Eldrick the Financial Analyst” or “Eldrick the Marine” instead of “Tiger the Golfer” … well, it’s almost unfathomable.
I mean, the “clickbait” approach to this would be to claim, “WITHOUT TIGER WOODS THE MASTERS WOULDN’T EXIST ANYMORE AND THE PGA TOUR SEASON WOULD ONLY HAVE TEN EVENTS AND RUN BETWEEN MARCH AND THE END OF MAY”, but, as you’ve probably been able to tell from the Spice Girls reference, this is a serious article.
But, really, try and think about it: how would golf look today without Tiger Woods? Without the surge of hot dollars that swelled purses, in some instances, by a whole million dollars in the space of just a year because sponsors and networks were flaking money at the PGA Tour because of him? Without the flood of new people who fell in love with the game after tuning in solely to see “This ‘Tiger Woods’ guy” who everyone was suddenly talking about when they weren’t talking about what an absolute banger the Bayside Boys’ remix of the Macarena was? Without the other wildly talented guys on tour like Mickelson, Goosen and Els, to name but a few, suddenly becoming even bigger stars because they were now thrust into an intriguing narrative of, “Who can stop Tiger?”.
And all that, of course, is before you even take into consideration how Tiger Woods was either an inspiration to or, in some cases, even an origin story for so many of today’s top stars, both in the men’s and women’s game; a trailblazing beacon that showed it didn’t matter how old you were – if you were good enough, you were therefore old enough.
So, ultimately, what is the definitive conclusion I came to for how golf would look today if Tiger Woods never turned pro? Is it a take so hot and scorching it will forever change who you fundamentally are, not only as a golf fan, but as a real-life, living human being? Did my tracking of the difference in purse sizes pre-’96 and post-’96, combined with counting how many tournaments made up PGA Tour seasons within those same years unlock some secret higher plane of consciousness where a literal talking Golden Bear guided me through a dystopian alternate universe where golf no longer exists?
Well, no, and … disappointingly… no, again.
No, the only conclusion I came to whilst looking into and thinking about this oh-so-hypothetical situation, is how great it was that it was just that – hypothetical. Because you know what? Back in 1996, Tiger Woods did turn professional, and, as a result, we were lucky enough to never have to see what the game we all love would have looked like without him.
So, whilst we can, of course, spend time imagining “what if?” when it comes to Tiger Woods, I think our time would be much better spent imagining “what’s next?”.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to the Macarena probably more times than I should.