NAPLES, Fla. — Say Tiger Woods’ name around his PGA Tour colleagues, and the reactions are swift.
“Golf needs Tiger Woods,” Brad Faxon said. “We wish them well and the best. I don’t know what the best thing to do is. Nobody does. But I know him on the golf course is good for everybody.”
Woods’ future is uncertain, his family forever affected by the infidelity he acknowledged Friday on his website when announcing his “indefinite” leave from the game. With that, a long shadow of doubt has been cast over golf, which has seen a financial boon since Woods stormed onto the scene and now can only wait and wonder what will happen with the world’s No. 1 player and the game’s biggest draw sidelined.
Will he come back? When? Where? At what level? There’s far more questions than answers.
“The tour has got to be worried, because what’s the definition of indefinite?” asked Greg Norman, the former world No. 1 and tournament host of the Shark Shootout this weekend. “Indefinite meaning, OK, it might be a year because a lot of issues have got to be resolved? That’s the word you’ve kind of got to drill in on.”
There was at least one definite move Sunday: Global consulting firm Accenture Ltd. became the first major sponsor to drop Woods. The firm said in a statement that Woods is “no longer the right representative” after the “circumstances of the last two weeks.”
The move ends a six-year relationship during which Accenture credited its “Go on, be a Tiger” campaign with boosting its image significantly.
In Dubai, a tournament official said Sunday that Woods has not yet canceled plans to play in the Desert Classic there in early February, and Dubai was willing to wait as long as possible for a decision.
When Woods was sidelined for eight months after his stirring win at the 2008 U.S. Open, television ratings were cut in half. Attendance is much higher when he is in a field, and even in a recession, it’s surely easier to sell sponsors on the merits of spending dollars to back an event that features Woods than one that does not.
There’s real concern among tour players for Woods and his wife, Elin, and their two children.
There’s some serious worry about the potential long-term effects for the tour as well.
“I don’t think it’s going to help anything, that’s for sure,” Nick Price said. “Especially in a recession like we’re in now.
“It’s hard enough to find sponsors out there, and now to try to sell things without Tiger in the field for however long it is, it’s going to be a challenge. I hope he comes back. I hope he comes back a changed man.”
So do fans.
Take Dodie Mills, a 61-year-old pediatric nurse from Port Charlotte, Fla. She was at the Shootout to see Kenny Perry, among others, but says her real lure to watching and playing golf has been Woods.
She wants to forgive him but has harsher words for the women with whom Woods has reportedly been linked.
“I think all the fame, all the money he has, all the women took advantage of it,” Mills said. “I can understand how a man in that position can be very easily swayed by women. I was 23 once.”
