December a Big Month for Tiger - and Golf

By: Marino Parascenzo


Borrowing from a weighty question that has haunted philosophers, theologians and the like for centuries, golf now asks - is there life after Tiger Woods?

For an answer to that question, equipment manufacturers, course owners, resort operators and most of all, television people, will turn their eyes the first week of December toward Isleworth Golf Club near Orlando, Fla., site of the exclusive-but-rich Hero World Challenge.

It is here that Tiger Woods will emerge from his latest round of health problems to take up the game again? He hasn't played since missing the cut at the PGA Championship early in August. It was his last try of a fitful 2014. Woods will play - or attempt to - no matter what, for it's "his" tournament. It will benefit his Tiger Woods Foundation, and so as host, he can hardly afford to miss it.

The tournament, which has been played under various names over the years, is a chummy little made-for-TV thing with an 18-man field, a $3.5 million purse and a first prize of $1 million.

Most of all, though, it's a test run for Woods. It should tell the golf world, and Woods himself, where his game stands after the various injuries, treatments and rehabilitations of 2014.

It was a gloomy year for him. Every time he thought it was back, it wasn't. Even his tech-talking guru coach Sean Foley, working with him for four years, couldn't get Tiger rewired. Generally, the key to a golfer's problem is a standard bad shot. Say, a slice or a hook - something to work on. Woods' problems were all of the above and then some. He wasn't getting stung by just one bee, but a whole swarm of them.

Woods finally fired Foley in August and has been going it alone, as far as is known. It seems the situation remains where it was back when he unloaded Foley: "I do not have a coach, and there is no timetable for hiring one," he said.

TV, of course, would welcome Tiger Woods back, even if he has to swing one-handed, standing on one leg. That's what the ratings game is all about. But just when you thought you understood that, along came PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem to open a new avenue.

At a mass interview in September, Finchem pre-empted the media corps and answered a question that had not been asked yet. He's best understood, if at all, in his full statement:

". . . before I take your questions," Finchem said, "I would say that on the television standpoint, it was kind of a mixed bag this year. Our ratings - if you just look at ratings, which we don't ever like to just look at ratings, we look at 'cum' [cumulative] audience - but if you look at ratings, they were off somewhat. And we attribute that somewhat to Tiger not playing and somewhat to the fact that we had very few playoffs this year compared to the last two years. And playoffs really do help our ratings. But on the other side of the coin, our 'cum' audience, the total number of people that tuned into our audience, was up seven or eight percent this year. And increasingly given the volume of hours we have on television, we look to 'cum' audience as a key metric."

(One gathers that this approach might play well when he's haggling with TV people over contracts.)

The seven or eight percent increase probably was encouraging, given the fact that Woods, the big draw, was rarely seen. His playing profile for the year is from an alien.

First, Woods pronounced 2013 a "damn good year" - five wins, the best showing in the world. But things turned sour at the end, starting with the World Challenge (different sponsor) last December, where he was a playoff loser to Zach Johnson. Woods doesn't lose playoffs, but he did this one. He missed the green with a 7-iron - unthinkable - then missed a par putt from five feet, thereby underlining the full breadth of his problems. They are manifold.

Then for 2014, he made seven starts, withdrew twice and missed two cuts, and his best finish was a tie for 25th. He was under par only twice - 13-under in the World Golf Challenge, then 5-under at the Honda Classic, where he missed the cut. In the majors, the events he lives for, Woods didn't play in the Masters or U.S. Open, tied for 69th in the British Open and missed the cut in the PGA.

As wines go, 2014 was just one sour year. Woods had been dropped, for example, by EA, the big video game company, where he'd been a star since 1999. Said EA: "We've always been big fans of Tiger and we wish him continued success . . . " etc. - and there's the door.

And then Woods' international image seems to have taken a big hit when his Middle East outings also dropped him because of his once-agreeable appearance fee. Said the British newspaper, the Telegraph, recently: "The organizers of both the Abu Dhabi Championship and Desert Classic will not be shelling out the estimated $2m-$3m [million] which Woods requires to make the trip."

But the principal issue of 2014 has been his back. Woods withdrew late in the final round of the Honda Classic in March, citing lower-back pain and spasms. The problem flared up again the following week at the Cadillac Championship, and he sat out the Arnold Palmer Invitational to get ready for the Masters. But he scratched the Masters to have surgery for a pinched nerve. At the Bridgestone Invitational in August, he withdrew during the final round.

Back pains - four months after back surgery. It was getting old. Years earlier, he'd had four surgeries on his left knee, including a ligament replacement.

All of which is summed up in the furrowed brows and nervous stomachs of the vested interests of golf for Woods' return in December. Someone came to the point, asking Woods what his schedule might be for the coming season.

"You know, that's a great question," said Woods, who turns 39 on December 30. "That's all dependent on how I feel and how I'm playing when I play in the Hero World Challenge."

Precisely what everyone else is thinking.

Marino Parascenzo can assure you that hanging around with great and famous pro golfers does nothing to help your game. They just won't give you the secret. But it makes for a dandy career. As a sportswriter with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (now retired), Parascenzo covered the whole gamut of sports - Steelers, Pirates, Penguins, Pitt, Penn State and others - but golf was his favorite. As the beat writer for the paper, he covered all the stateside majors and numerous other pro events, and as a freelancer handled reporting duties for the British Open and other tournaments overseas - in Britain, Spain, Italy, the Caribbean, South Africa, China and Malayasia. Marino has won more than 20 national golf-writing awards, along with state and regional honors. He has received the Memorial Tournament's Golf Journalism Award and the PGA of America's Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines, among them Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest and Golf Magazine, and in anthologies and foreign publications. He also wrote the history of Oakmont Country Club. Parascenzo is a former president of the Golf Writers Association of America and is on its board of directors. He is the founder and chairman of the GWAA's Journalism Scholarship Program. He is a graduate of Penn State and was an adjunct instructor in journalism at Pitt.