The Tiger Effect: Phase Two

The first phase of the Tiger Effect has spanned from the time that he turned pro in 1996 until the day that he announced that his impending fatherhood would refocus his energies away from golf.

The PGA Tour and all of the Non-Tiger tour players should have shuddered. Woods has driven the tour, almost by himself, for the last 11 years. Beyond the bluster of the tour's These Guys Are Good tagline remains the fact that a Tiger-less tour will not be the tour we've come to know over the last decade.

Tiger will keep on playing but with ever more focus on the majors, the elite field events, and ever less deference to the tour and its interests. The question is how will this affect the tour's long term viability?

Beyond this, how will the tour fare once Tiger is really gone? That time will be especially revealing if the current shift of power from the American players and towards the Euros and the Internationals continues. It won't matter why the US players become gradually second best (though Jack Nicklaus' theories on the subject are intriguing) but it will have an impact on sponsorships and television ratings and there are few things more important to the tour.

As always, the mainstream golf press misses the point: The Golf Channel's Rich Lerner almost got it but instead prattled on about whether Tiger's own event should be a full or limited field event and the rank and file tour players didn't know whether to act hurt or just continue to bow to Tiger's throne.