Why the PGA Tour still needs Tiger Woods
By Joe Genzel
Before Tiger Woods’ most recent comeback, the PGA Tour was slumping.
Tiger Woods’ performance at the Valspar Championship last week was exactly the kind of boost the PGA needed, and the 14-time major champion wasn’t even near his best Sunday, thrusting himself into the mix from the first tee. His performance captivated golf fans, registering a 5.1 television rating. To put that in perspective, the final round of the Valspar was watched by more people than the final rounds of the 2017 U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship. It was the highest-rated non-major in five years.
The PGA was only doing poorly from a popularity standpoint if compared to when Tiger was at his best. He captivated so many new fans with his play, and it’s apparent those folks have come back, to the PGA’s benefit.
It feels like Tiger won last week — most of us have to go back and check it was Paul Casey, who shot a phenomenal 6-under 65, to beat Woods. The fact is, no matter what you think of Tiger (his personal life has been a roller coaster ever since that fateful day a golf club reportedly met the back windshield of his car), he’s good for golf, even if he never returns to the dominance that once propelled him to the top of this sport.
His second-place finish Sunday at the Valspar and that 44-foot bomb of a putt on No.17, conjured memories from so many final rounds where Tiger imposed his will on the rest of the field, and watched them crumble. Now he’s the odds-on favorite to win Arnold Palmer’s tournament this week at Bay Hill, where he has won eight times.
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Tiger has been hitting fairways (though his driver is still a work in progress), striking irons and managing his short game better than he has in previous comebacks. He’s even putting well and is now 11th on the Tour in stokes gained, an astounding statistic for player whose injuries made him a shadow of the golfer he once was.
Tiger scuffled with his approach shots in the final round at Valspar, but if he cleans that up, he could very well be looking at another win at Bay Hill. And the PGA will be staring at a second straight week of ratings spikes.