Tiger Woods: Goodbye To All That

The New York Times Magazine has published a long, gloomy story about the fall of Tiger Woods and its affect on golf, particularly the PGA Tour. Jonathan Mahler, who wrote "The Tiger Bubble," ties the sex and the money into a neat bundle and makes some troubling observations about where the sport is headed.

Here's part of what Mahler had to say about the Tour and where it stands with its corporate partners:

The PGA Tour is at a critical juncture. Next year it will begin negotiating new TV contracts with CBS and NBC. In the meantime, the tour is trying to secure sponsors for 10 events in 2011 while economic conditions are not exactly favorable. Two of the hardest-hit industries, financial services and car manufacturing, are responsible for underwriting a third of the PGA Tour’s sponsored events. More to the point, the entire economic model of a golf tournament is looking a bit suspect. At the moment, the value of a company’s flying clients and employees to a sunny locale to drink Grey Goose cocktails and get tips on their short games from professional golfers is most likely to be lost on many of its shareholders.

Mahler also discusses the Tour's inevitable globalization, noting that it "could provide new revenue streams to the tour." He writes:

Just as Michael Jordan inspired a flood of foreign players to seek their fortunes in the National Basketball Association, Woods helped globalize the PGA Tour. When he first went pro in 1996, 26 of the tour’s 200 active members were not Americans; today the PGA Tour has 77 foreign golfers from 21 countries.

Mahler also wonders about corporate America's willingness to fund a tarnished brand.

For years, Woods fueled a frenzy of investment in the game -- from corporate sponsors, advertisers, broadcasters, clothing and equipment manufacturers, even golf-course developers. It was, you could say, a classic economic bubble, the Tiger Bubble. The question now is whether Woods’s crash will end up being just a temporary correction for golf or if the bubble has truly burst. Even if he does manage to dominate his sport again, will investors return to an enterprise whose fortunes have seemed so inextricably linked to a single brand?

Finally, Mahler talks with Jay Williamson, a middling golfer -- not a single victory during his 15 years on the Tour -- who's nonetheless managed to earn more than $5.5 million. Williamson speculates about the sport's prospects:

“I just don’t think golf will ever get back to where it was. I think we’ve worn some of our sponsors out, and I just don’t think in this kind of economic environment we’re going to attract the kind of money we did in the glory days. I hope I’m wrong, but I just feel it.”

The story is worth reading, and I encourage you to check it out.