Tiger--the second coming....

[steve B]

Those were the ones he paid off?

I'm not so sure he's good for golf. A fascinating, dominant player for sure, but he draws a large bulk of the fans. And without fans debating who's better their guy or someone elses it gets boring pretty quickly. Plus once he finally retires a lot of the Tiger fans won't continue to follow golf.

Same thing for Lance Armstrong, great for him, but in a country where cycling is a fringe sport having people think that The Tour de France is the only bike race really doesn't help.

Steve B

[Leon]

Originally Posted by steve B

Those were the ones he paid off?

I'm not so sure he's good for golf. A fascinating, dominant player for sure, but he draws a large bulk of the fans. And without fans debating who's better their guy or someone elses it gets boring pretty quickly. Plus once he finally retires a lot of the Tiger fans won't continue to follow golf.

Same thing for Lance Armstrong, great for him, but in a country where cycling is a fringe sport having people think that The Tour de France is the only bike race really doesn't help.

Steve B

Hey Steve
For the sake of debate how can he not be good for golf if he draws big crowds? I am not talking about the morality side of humanity, I am talking about the business side of the sport. As for Tiger retiring.....he only has about 35 yrs left to golf. That is the one sport that the guys can easily go into their early to mid 60's (at least on the Sr. tour) and still play....It will be "Tiger" for a long time to come unless something happens to him and/or his health. As for not having any extra, mistress babies.....It might be too early to make that statement +

[barrysloate]

The key for Tiger is to not get distracted by everything in his life other than golf. And that may not be easy. Golf is such a precision sport that missing even a couple of putts is the difference between finishing first or tenth.

And how will he handle the media? Don't you think they will be all over him? If he can just play golf and block out everything else he is of course the best player. I predict his game will be off.

[FUBAR]

When Tiger is 65, i can see him being like Bob Barker... In his 60's and hitting it with 3 of his beauties.... BOB is da man! Bob kickin Adam Sandler's ass is still one of the funniest movie scenes ever

[Leon]

Originally Posted by FUBAR

When Tiger is 65, i can see him being like Bob Barker... In his 60's and hitting it with 3 of his beauties.... BOB is da man! Bob kickin Adam Sandler's ass is still one of the funniest movie scenes ever

Not to go too far off topic, at least talking about babes, is there anyone in the world luckier than Hugh Hefner? The guy will be 84 yrs old in 3 weeks and always has a bevy of hot chicks around him. Man 'o Man!!

[steve B]

Yeah, Hugh has had it made for years. And no pretense about being anthing he's not.

My point about Tiger not necessarily being good for golf is maybe a finer point, and maybe not even right. And none of it relates to his morality in any way. I'll try to be a bit more clear.

He's very good for promoters of tournaments. He's a great player, and getting closer all the time to having a legit claim as the best ever.

But fot the sport of golf? That's a different thing. And it's a hard thing to figure out. We may not know the answer for a very long time, maybe even beyond my lifetime. Super dominant players in ant era have the potential to be bad over all for the long term interests of the sport. I rarely watched golf in the past, and have tried it once. I've watched a bit more with Tiger competing. But how good are the other guys? And who are they? To a casual viewer, golf is Tiger and Just Tiger. And to a casual viewer he gets a bit boring. So I'm back to rarely watching since I can see the highlights on the news.

A few parallells are the US basketball teams for the olympics and other international tournaments. In 92 the team was unbelievably good. And their playing was a bit overdue since the rest of the world was getting big headed about beating an assortment of college kids that included guys that couldn't make the NBA. In 96 I got to see a game against China in person. I left after the game thinking I'd just watched a team put up 166 points an look bad doing it. At the time the NBA was riding high and considering expansion to Mexico and Japan. Add a bit of international dissapointment and a tattooed thug attitude and you've got what we have today. An NBA that has retreated from international expansion, and is somewhat struggling. International basketball has done better but not in anyplace that it didn't have a steady market. And part of that is that the incredible assortment of great players has been replaced by lebron and maybe a couple hundred guys that are barely known. I don't watch much basketball anymore, like the dream team II game, it's become a game of setting up a few set piece plays for one particular player.

The same thing could be said of parts of baseball. Just look at the AL east. it's been The Sox or Yankees for a very long time. If those teams weren't dominant (Either through big spending or better player choice) The fortunes of the other teams would be much better. I am a sox fan, and watch a good bit of baseball and get to maybe one game a year. And I'm happpy to see them playing in the playoffs so regularly. But I know the fans of Baltimore aren't so happy or engaged. And a team that isn't competetive isn't gaining as many new fans. They'll follow football or soccer or snowboarding or something else. So while it's been great, the Yankees/Sox rivalry and mutual dominance of the AL east hasn't been good for baseball in general. But it has been great for those owners.

Steve

[drdduet]

I see it differently Steve--I admit I don't follow your logic though....

Having someone like Tiger in an otherwise dead sport, brings the sport back to life. What that does is create more interest, more interest results in higher levels of participation in the young ones....higher levels of participation equates to an increase in the talent pool....an increase in the talent pool increases the level of competition and increases the odds of developing the next big thing....

[teetwoohsix]

I agree Steve.But you can bet that if Baltimore made it to the play off's,or better yet,the world series,all of the closet (and hardcore) fans would be selling out the stadium.

As far as Tiger goes-he does seem to be "the spark" in golf.I have no interest in golf,but used to enjoy watching what he did in the highlights of the sports news-because he was "that good".There doesn't seem to be any other golfer that pulls my attention that way.Not that there aren't any other good golfers,but thats my point.Tiger was dominant,and I figure he still will be dominant.

The only good thing that came out of all the "Tiger drama",is that everyone got to see that he is also just a human being-we all make mistakes,and no one is perfect.He appologized,what more can anyone expect?

Leon's right Jim-too early to tell if there's going to be any unknown "baby Tigers" surfacing-but I'm sure at least one or two of the "golddiggers" will be on Extra or TMZ claiming he fathered their new baby!!