| | Issue #19.37 :: 04/09/2008 - 04/15/2008 | Tiger Woods Effect
One of golf’s greatest players gets credit for much. But just how far-reaching is his influence on the game’s next generation of players?
| BY AMY FENNELL CHRISTIAN
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AUGUSTA, GA. - As Tiger Woods tees up at Augusta National this week, vying for an incredible fifth Masters Green Jacket in his relatively short career, one would think that he would have the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The 32-year-old, after all, has been described by his parents as the “Chosen One” and a “Universal Child.” Competitors have called him superhuman, a king and a freak of nature. Sports pundits credit him single-handedly with everything from the rapid rise of public courses to inspiring a new generation of children to a game that was, formerly, the bastion of the old and the wealthy.
Call it the Tiger Woods Effect.
But is all the talk just exaggeration, or are supporters simply giving Tiger the respect he is due? “Professional golfer” doesn’t seem an adequate way to describe the man who has been in the public spotlight since he matched putting skills against Bob Hope on “The Mike Douglas Show” when he was two years old.
Nationally, the Tiger Woods Effect is undeniable: Golf Magazine says 72-hole TV coverage of golf tournaments didn’t exist before Tiger. Amateur golfers and weekend warriors, they say, changed the way they practice after hearing him talk about learning golf backwards, from the green to the tee.
But what is the 32-year-old golf legend’s effect on the game’s next generation?
“I think what we’ve all seen is an interest in golf by young people since Tiger came on the scene,” says local photographer Frank Christian, who served as club photographer for Augusta National from 1948 to 2000. “For a long time, golf had an elitist image and golf is a very expensive sport. Tiger has brought golf truly to the masses.”
Tiger may have “made golf cool,” as some national sportswriters have said, but not everyone thinks that translates into more kids on courses.
Jill Brown is executive director of the First Tee of Augusta, and while she heads up a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching children ages 8-17 life skills through golf, she admits she doesn’t play.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” she laughs, “but I have kids and a family and I work at a golf course. All that means that I don’t have time to play golf.”
She may not play, but Brown knows how difficult golf can be to grasp, especially for young players just starting out.
“Unlike other sports, where you can blame someone or something else if you don’t do well, in golf it’s just you and the ball,” she said. “And the ball’s not moving. It’s just sitting there.”
Just lining up a shot, staring down at that dimpled white ball, can teach a golfer a lot about perseverance, one of the nine core values The First Tee instills in all its students. Others include honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, respect, confidence, responsibility, courtesy and judgment.
The approach, Brown says, is seamless. First Tee students don’t spend an hour outside practicing and 30 minutes in a classroom learning. Instead, students have laminated cards that they must present at the front desk in the clubhouse every time they come for a lesson. Present your card, and you get 50-cent range balls and $1 rounds of golf. Forget your card and the price goes up to $5 for range ball and $6 for a round.
Forgetting cards usually doesn’t happen more than once, Brown says.
First Tee students learn sportsmanship through golf rules and etiquette. They learn courtesy through projects like writing thank-you notes to First Tee donors. They learn respect by following the rules of the course: shirts tucked in, no jeans, no cut-offs.
The nine core values curriculum, however, is just one of the tools The First Tee uses. Another is STAR, which stands for Stop, Think, Anticipate, Respond.
“Once you teach it, they can use it on the golf course. Can they use it in school and at home? Sure they can,” Brown says. “We try to teach them things they can actually take with them and use. Once they start using them on the golf course, they become second nature and they start using them off the golf course as well.”
Some of those First Tee values may well be why Tiger Woods is the player he is today. Golf is a slow game, a thoughtful one in which one fit of temper, a moment of lost concentration, even a simple case of nerves can cost you a tournament.
Legend has it that Tiger began mimicking his father Earl’s golf swing from the crib. He went on to shoot a 48 for nine holes when he was a mere 4 and, by 8, had won the 9-10 age group at the Junior World Championships.
There are also stories of Earl blaring car horns and making other distracting noises while Tiger practiced his swing, hoping to help him develop the concentration and mental toughness he would later need. Oddly enough, and despite the Svengali reputation some had given him, in obituaries after Earl Woods died in 2006, the general consensus was that it was Earl who humanized Tiger, that the post-victory hug he always gave his father on the 18th offset his cold and calculating demeanor in the hours before on the course.
That connection was made even more obvious when, at his first win after Earl’s death at the British Open, Tiger suddenly realized his father wouldn’t be there to greet him and broke down. As he cried, his caddie steered him off the green and into the arms of his wife, Elin.
But these fits of emotion are few and far between, and his reputation as a shrewd competitor is what people, on and off the course, see most often. It’s also what people like Brown, and First Tee Director of Programs Alphonso Ashford, says is sometimes a problem when Tiger is cited as a great role model for kids.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love him to death. He’s the reason I started playing golf,” Ashford said. “But he’s is allowed to get away with some things that he wouldn’t if he weren’t Tiger. He’s got that whole Charles Barkley thing going on: When I’m on the golf course, I’m not your child’s role model. And he’s not going to transcend that until he stops cursing and throwing clubs.”
Ashford added that if he took a student enrolled in First Tee out to play a round of golf and he acted the way that Tiger has on past occasions — granted, when the pro been unlucky enough to have a camera, and the eyes of the world, trained on him — that child would not be invited back.
“Golf is a gentleman’s sport,” Ashford explained. “That kind of behavior is not OK for anyone. People sometimes say that it’s just Tiger’s competitive nature, but that’s considered unsportsmanlike. And that’s across the board no matter how competitive you are.”
Brown and Ashford agree that, as far as skill, Tiger is unmatched and his reputation warranted. They’d just like him to remember that those cameras are trained on him constantly, and those cameras are beaming images to children across the world.
“Being good does not excuse you from life skills,” Brown said. “People place so much stress on monetary success and great skill. If that’s the bar you’ve set for yourself, that’s great. But my bar’s a little bit higher.
“The Tiger Woods programs are phenomenal,” she added. “But once you start a foundation with your name on it that impacts the lives of kids, you have to realize that they’re watching you. That’s an arena you threw your hat into.”
The two First Tee employees also agree that there is one little thing that might soon change Tiger’s attitude about his demeanor. And her name is Sam Alexis, born to Tiger and Elin in June of 2007.
“Now that he has a child of his own… you know, when you have kids, you see people doing things and you think, ‘I don’t want my kids around that,’ and you start reevaluating the way you behave, too,” Brown said. “Or you should.”
Even before Sam came along, Tiger was dedicated to helping kids. In 1996, he and his father Earl established the Tiger Woods Foundation that Brown mentioned, an organization committed to helping children set goals and giving them a way to achieve those goals.
Visit the foundation’s Web site, and you’ll hear Tiger tell you a little bit about the 10-year-old organization, which helps youth through character development programs, scholarships (including one named after Earl Woods), grants, junior golf teams, youth clinics and the Tiger Woods Learning Center, located in Anaheim, Calif.
Visitors to the site will also meet some of the students helped by the foundation’s programs, including Anna, an eighth grader who says she wants to be a veterinarian.
“My fist pump moment,” she says, citing Tiger’s most famous tournament victory gesture, “was getting a good grade on my benchmark exam.”
The results of his foundation are impressive. They estimate they’ve helped 10 million kids in 10 years with their many programs. The learning center, they say, reached 8,000 kids just a year after it opened in 2006. In 2003, they had one million kids enrolled in their character education program, based on Earl’s book “Start Something.”
The Tiger Woods Foundation and The First Tee share many of the same values: Integrity, honesty, discipline and, though it’s not an express value for First Tee like it is for Tiger’s foundation, fun. And though the two programs kicked off within a year of each other, Brown said that many people still believe that The First Tee is somehow overseen by the Woods dynasty.
“If I remember correctly, the kick-off for The First Tee was in 1997 in Central Park [in New York City],” Brown said. “Tiger Woods was there, his father, Earl, was there. So many people think that this is Tiger’s program. It’s not.”
Instead, communities have to want to have a First Tee program, and each is funded in a different manner. Some are part of the city government. Others are part of recreation programs like the Family Y. Still others make agreements with local golf courses.
In Augusta’s case, The First Tee is a stand-alone entity — a highly unusual and beneficial arrangement for the organization.
“We’re fortunate in that we do have our own golf course,” Brown said of the six-hole course that sits off Wrightsboro Road on Damascus, just yards from Daniel Field where Tiger, and many other pros in for the Masters, land their private jets. “Our board really wanted that. The board wanted kids to have their own course, a safe place, and I think we’ve done that, but it comes at a price. Hence the concert [Drive For Show, Rock Fore! Dough] and all of our fundraising efforts.
Yet, despite 10 years under The First Tee’s belt nationally — six for Augusta’s chapter — they are still just now making inroads with local youth. First Tee of Augusta enrolls 700-800 students yearly, which sounds like a lot. Getting them on the course, however, is something that Brown says is not as easy as it seems, even with all the interest garnered from Tiger’s miraculous rise.
“If you build a golf course, open it, say it’s for kids, you would think that kids would come,” Brown said. “But it doesn’t always work out that way.”
Six years after its inception locally, Brown said that they are just now enrolling kids from the apartment building across the street. And that’s after years of trying to get their name out there, including taking some of The First Tee’s curriculum into public schools.
So what’s standing in the way? Kids want to be just like Tiger, right?
Sure they do, Brown said. But Tiger is almost as mythical to them as Superman is.
“Children also look up to superheroes,” Brown laughed. “They want to be like superheroes, but where do you go to buy a cape? Kids and Tiger — it’s the same way. I’d love to play golf, but I don’t have any idea how to begin.”
Ashford puts it another way.
“Tiger streamlines golf,” he explained. “He makes it like hip-hop. He puts it in front of kids’ faces. He’s young, he’s attractive, wealthy, he’s got a beautiful wife and a great family.”
Getting from wherever a child might be to where Tiger is now is the obstacle.
“Golf is a foreign land for many kids,” Brown said. “It’s an exposure issue. All kids know who Tiger is, but because they have not ever shared that experience — they don’t know how to get to a golf course and they might not even know anyone who’s a member of a golf course — they don’t know how to begin. And it’s an expensive game.”
That, she said, is where The First Tee comes in. They charge affordable prices for their programs, and offer financial assistance for those who might otherwise be turned away. A First Tee student doesn’t have to buy any equipment because of daily donations from individuals, groups and local golf courses.
“Our goal here is to make it affordable,” Brown said. “But our biggest challenge is helping those kids who haven’t been exposed to the game.”
And until they do that, it may be years — or even decades — before we’ll really know how far-reaching the Tiger Woods Effect is.
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