Tiger Woods has a strange history with his hometown PGA Tour event, and that didn’t change this week, when he limped (literally) to an up-and-down (69-74-67-73) 45th place finish.
The former LA Open, now known at the Genesis Invitational, gave Woods his first start on tour, offering a sponsor’s exemption to a geeky 16-year-old from Cypress, Calif., in 1992. Tiger used those first turns around a pro set-up to realize “I needed to go back to high school golf, get better there,” he said during a media session before this year’s event.
The ’92 tournament took place at Riviera Country Club, the sort of classic course that favors great ballstrikers and which Woods has dominated over his career. Yet in 15 starts (14 of them at Riviera), he’s never won in LA.
And of course, it was two days after the 2021 Genesis that Woods ran his car—a Genesis courtesy vehicle—off the road, endangering his life and leading to multiple surgeries on his right leg. He’d already been out of action, recovering from back problems, but the accident sidelined him for another 13 months. He played in three of last year’s majors, but this year’s Genesis was his first official PGA Tour start in 844 days.
Woods still showed up at Genesis in 2022. He’s been the tournament host since 2017, meaning he has certain emcee-like duties and his TGR foundation is the recipient of the event’s charitable giving. That was also the week LIV golf emerged as more than a far-fetched concept. “If you go back to this week at Genesis last year to where it’s at now, we all have to say it’s been very turbulent,” Woods said. “We never would have expected the game of golf to be in this situation, but it is, that’s the reality, and I was alluding to trying to create the best product. Obviously, they’re a competitive organization trying to create their best product they possibly can, and we’re trying to create the best product that we think the future of golf, how it should be played.”
Thanks to the rise of LIV, stretches of Woods’ media sit-down sounded less like a triumphant return to the place where it all started than an earnings call. The transcript runs to 4,000 words and he used more than 1,100 of them talking tour business. For a man whose public discursions usually supply an ample dose of golf lingo—“trajes” and “feels” and “activating glutes”—the heaping of business jargon was if not mildly upsetting, somewhat off-putting.
He used the word “product” nine times, dropped in “aligned” twice, talked of “supporting partners”, “marketing” and a “new model.” He was, it felt, only a “stakeholders” and a “KPI” from completing the entire meeting-speak Bingo card. (“Leverage” is the free space.)
As odd as it sounded at times, there was an inevitability to the emergence of Tiger the CEO. Besides his golf course design firm (which announced a new project last week, Marcella Club in Utah), his foundation and his role at the Genesis, Woods and Rory McIlroy have seized control of the PGA Tour over the last year. Batman and Robin in white belts and ball caps, the pair have been spokesmen, cheerleaders, labor organizers, product innovators and operations consultants, among other roles.
In August, they founded TGL, a tour-backed circuit featuring three-on-three 18-hole matches on a virtual course inside arenas that will air in a two-hour window on Monday nights. (A start date has not been announced). That same month, Woods and McIlroy organized and ran a player’s only meeting that devised a plan to counter LIV, including a series of “designated” events within the tour schedule that would have higher purses, mandatory attendance by top players, smaller fields and guaranteed money for everyone who teed it up. The details are still being negotiated, but there are eight designated events this year, including Genesis. The meeting also theorized a guaranteed annual minimum payout for every player on the tour.
“It’s been difficult, there’s no lie,” Woods said when asked about the challenge of LIV. “You’ve seen our ambassador, Rory, go through it. It’s been tough on him, but he’s been exceptional. To be able to go through all that, I’ve been with him on all those conference calls and side meetings, and for him to go out there and play and win, it’s been incredible.”
There’s no guarantee the plan will work, but at least part of its success relies on messaging—getting the word out to sponsors, partners, media, players and fans, which is part of the challenge Woods faced. “He had a difficult job addressing several complex issues affecting the sport during a short media availability, and as usual, he was thoughtful and insightful,” said Keith Green, who teaches sports PR and is the coordinator of strategic communication at Montclair State University’s School of Communication and Media, adding later: “I think he did fine.”
Where could he improve? “I would suggest he emphasizes ‘entertainment’ or ‘entertaining’ since I did not hear that term during the presser,” Green said. “Do I think that means the PGA Tour has to turn into the golf equivalent of the Savannah Bananas? No, but I would make it sound less like a commodity.”
Of course, Tiger has a few other hurdles to clear on his dash to the C-suite. After outdriving his friend and playing partner during Friday’s round, Woods tried to slip Justin Thomas a tampon. Even in Hollywood, Woods is the most watched person on the course, so no surprise cameras caught the stunt, a headshaking decision that at best came off as juvenile, inconsiderate and unbefitting a person of his age, stature and place in the limelight. He apologized, quickly and thoroughly, but his role as visionary leader mixed with caretaker of the game’s traditions took a hit.
What else could he do better? Woods made the cut and finished in at 1-under, 16 strokes behind winner Jon Rahm, but as mentioned, it was only his fourth official event since October 2020. If he really wants to be a CEO, he has to play more golf.