The name of the tournament next week is Tiger Returns ' it was in bold letters above WGC-Accenture Match Play on a graphic promoting the event.
Be prepared for a full-court publicity press over the next week. Itll be in your face like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul on the same team ' and theyre down by five with a minute to play. Itll be all over you.
More eyeballs will be on Golf Channel next Wednesday than likely have ever been on any day in our history.
ESPN pays scant attention to golf on a daily basis, yet Tiger was the dominant story on their Web site and will be next week.
Tigers Tuesday press conference will be A-Rod-esque, without making you roll your eyeballs.
Hank Haney will be a hot commodity next week ' and the one after when the world tunes into Golf Channel to see his Charles Barkley swing reclamation in The Haney Project. After trying to fix Chucks action, teaching Tiger must feel like teaching Bill Gates how to log onto a computer.
Further, there arent many executives these days with reason to high-five, but Ill bet the ones at Accenture are. Talk about bang for your endorsement buck. Did Tiger come back in part to satisfy a sponsor? Will he skip the Buick Open in Grand Blanc, Mich., now that he no longer rides with GM? Maybe.
While appearance fees are a non-starter on the PGA Tour, if Mercedes or AT&T is willing to put up tens of millions to partner with Tiger, assume hell suddenly be playing all of their events. And if thats what it takes to get Tiger to move, so be it. Really, he deserves to be paid to show up, like any performer in demand in any other discipline. Like the Rolling Stones.
Fans dont care how you get Tiger. Just get him. Plus Tigers not exactly the type to collect the check and then coast, is he?
And spare me the psycho-analysis on any mental or physical adjustment. This is Tiger Woods. He won the U.S. Open on one good leg. Now he has two. Hes done all the resting, nesting and testing he can do. You know hes itching to just mangle his competition, because thats what he does in his professional life. Thats who he is. No mere professional golfer, but a professional tournament winner, professional history maker, professional mind-blowing-clutch-putter.
Therell be no easing into the comeback. Tiger does moments like Hershey does Kisses. This is a moment.
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