Welcome Back Tiger! Or Not?

This past week Tiger Woods announced his return to golf. After seven months of intense rehab, Tiger's surgically repaired knee is finally ready to be tested on the big stage. This is amazing for the PGA Tour whose TV ratings have fallen nearly 55% percent since Tiger's last appeaence, and attendance for this years Championship was less than half of what it was when Tiger was in the running.

While the Tour sponsors, officials, and fans are all extatic for his return, I greatly question if the other players on the tour are as excited. Over the past 7 months 17 players have won PGA events. Last year only 10 won. Of these 17 players, 4 have won two or more events. When Tiger was playing only one other player ( Paddrick Harrington) won more than one event. Tiger Woods not only wins more than a third of the events he enters but he also steals the spotlight from everyone else even when he is losing.

All this being said golf cannot continue to be a mainstream sport without Tiger. Tiger Woods is the real life Happy Gilmore of golf. He gets all the fans and media attention, but i the process is bringing attention to everyone else on the Tour. While the players might hate the fact that Tiger always wins, he does bring more sponsors and more fans to the sport. This makes prize money for all places bigger and in teh long run benefits all the players.

So while most of the players love to hate Tiger Woods, he is the one thing that is keeping the sport of golf in the eyes of the average sports viewer. When it comes down to it the PGA Tour is a business and having Tiger Woods on teh Tour benefits everyone financially.