What to Expect from Tiger’s Second Chapter

Tiger Woods’ new venture adds his name to a list of current superstars looking to add to their legacies through entrepreneurship.

Add Bill Gates to the list of Tiger Woods’ idols, which already includes the late Arnold Palmer, Michael Jordan and Jack Nicklaus. Woods has officially kicked off what he’s calling “the second half” of his career, one that he hopes will have a far greater impact off the golf course than it has already had on it. Although, it would appear that the business venture will act as a bit of a cushion as Woods tries to consistently get back on the golf course, something he hasn’t been able to do for several years now.

Woods is in the midst of a media tour supporting his latest business venture TWR with designs of pulling all of his current businesses under one umbrella, something that even he admits pinpoints a “transition” in his professional life. He was as open as I’ve seen him and was very candid when asked about what TWR signifies, which included the admission that some day envisions a life without golf.

“I’m setting up chapter two of my life. Chapter one was the golfer and only the golfer playing golf and winning golf tournaments,” Woods told Charlie Rose the other night. “Here I’m setting up chapter two without hitting a golf ball and setting up a business empire so I don’t have to hit a golf ball. I can transition, eventually, into becoming an entrepreneur.”

In December of 2006 Tiger Woods was coming off his most emotional season to date. Having just won two more major championships, The Open Championship at Royal Liverpool and the PGA Championship at Medinah, Woods was on top of his game, yet personally he was bouncing back from the death of his father and best friend, Earl.

Ten years later Woods finds himself in a similar emotional juxtaposition having to search for the remnants of his once-dominant golf game that has been splintered by injuries and public embarrassment. Woods relied heavily on preparation as the fuel for his dominance, leveraging it as the catalyst to achieve all-time greatness. He worked so hard- harder than anyone  he always believed- that it allowed him to expect all the success and global celebrity that came with it his victories.

His legacy at that time was clearly defined; firmly supplanted in the upper echelon of the all-time greats in any sport. At just 30 years old and 12 Major Championships attached to his name, he was a veritable lock to reach his then-goal of passing Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors, thus making him the greatest golfer in history. In listening to Woods it’s clear he’s not nearly as obsessed with 18 as he once was, a sign that he’s well onto the back nine of his professional career at 40.

Fair or not, when we the fans think about Woods in 2016, you think of a man at the crossroads of his life and career in a similar if not more challenging personal juxtaposition as he was 2006. He’s been stuck on 14 majors and hasn’t won a major since 2008. You think of someone clearly on the back nine of their career with a diminishing, if not amateur-level short game keeping him from competing, and a legacy that is linked to his off course transgressions more so than his on course prowess.

To help rebuild that legacy Woods announced Monday he is joining a long-list of sports icons who are jumping into the world startup with TWR. He’s doing so with the same ambition with a dash of ambiguity that has made him, arguably, the world’s most powerful sports icon over the past two decades depending your criteria (FastCompany.com).

“There is so much excitement about the potential of TGR,” the usually tight-lipped Woods explained. “I’m excited to explore the possibilities in design, product development, hospitality, and possibly entertainment.”

The timing of the announcement is interesting to say the least considering Woods curiously just pulled the plug on his latest comeback attempt, which was scheduled to be at the PGA Tour’s Safeway Open last Monday. Woods, who hasn’t won a golf tournament since 2013, has always been supremely focused on his legacy, something that took a massive hit when he went through a bitter, messy and publicly damaging divorce in 2010.

The incident and ensuing split have overshadowed great work that Woods has done through his foundation and in introducing the game of golf to inner city kids and spreading the popularity of the game globally.

"“Tiger is an inadvertent lightning rod, and probably not by choice, so not competing is a tremendous void that he’s dealing with,”says sports psychologist Dr. Eric Margenau. “It seems he’s battling his transition and coming to terms with the death, in some respects, to his game as he knew it.”"

Combining this latest venture under one corporate umbrella, along side The Tiger Woods Foundation and TGR Design, allows Woods the resources to potentially invest in early stage companies, a strategy that has become very popular in sports over the past few years, namely Lebron James. But it allows him a cushion to build up the self-esteem as a player that he needs to at least return to competing on the PGA Tour.

"“Tiger’s game took a pretty sudden fall,” says Margenau. “He’s had some time now to look his future in the eye, which doesn’t happen when you’re at the top. He was caught up in the intoxication of what he was doing. His mind didn’t want to go away from that euphoria.  when you crash you have to deal with it and I think that may be what this latest venture is about.”"

Woods joins James and the New York Knicks Carmelo Anthony as a few of the most recent and bigger name sports stars to jump into the game of entrepreneurialism.  James partnered with childhood friend Maverick Carter and secured nearly $16 million in the 4th quarter of last year for their media startup “Uninterrupted.”

Anthony received plenty of criticism from fans and media for his comments last year about leaving a “bulletproof” legacy, and his vision behind achieving this was to invest in the New York startup scene. Many fans lambasted him as they believed he should focus all of his efforts on the court seeing that he already has one of the biggest contracts in the NBA and in the sports world as a whole.

Entrepreneurialism in golf is something we’ve seen before and it can be the pathway to expanding wealth for Woods. It began with the late Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player as well as the efforts of Greg Norman, whose company Great White Shark Enterprises has become a world-renowned global brand thanks to over 100 golf course designs, real estate endeavors, Vineyards and apparel. All of those retired golfers are perennially on Forbes top 10 in earnings of all former athletes starting with Palmer at #2 behind Jordan. For Tiger, will business fill the competitive void, or is he merely coming to grips with the next stage of his life.

But as we’ve seen most recently the sports media and fans are fickle when it comes to how they choose to remember a player’s career and, business success or not, by far and away the biggest boost for Woods’ legacy will be making birdies and hoisting trophies again. But what if he can’t? Will success in business and the continued growth of his foundation satisfy his competitive itch?

Judging from his recent media tour Tiger has given himself an out, which is totally un-Tiger like.