Tiger Woods: An Unauthorized Biography by Rob Price

Author:Rob Price [Price, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2013-03-29T16:00:00+00:00

Tiger-proofing

"He can shift to grind gear any time he wants. Like today, he was on cruise control. He was not on fire. Not on his A-game, going out there aggressive and trying to make birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie. If he had been threatened, he would have switched gears and gone into his attack mode. He can do that any time he wants. It's called talent.”

- Earl Woods

Early in Woods' career, a small number of golf experts expressed concern about his impact on the competitiveness of the game and the public appeal of professional golf. Sportswriter Bill Lyon of Knight-Ridder asked in a column, "Isn't Tiger Woods actually bad for golf?" (although Lyon ultimately concluded that he was not). At first, some pundits feared that Woods would drive the spirit of competition out of the game of golf by making existing courses obsolete and relegating opponents to simply competing for second place each week.

A related effect was measured by economist Jennifer Brown of the University of California, Berkley, who found that other golfers played worse when competing against Woods than when he was not in the tournament. The scores of highly skilled (exempt) golfers are nearly one stroke higher when playing against Woods. This effect was larger when he was on winning streaks and disappeared during his well-publicized slump in 2003–04. Brown explains the results by noting that competitors of similar skill can hope to win by increasing their level of effort, but that, when facing a "superstar" competitor, extra exertion does not significantly raise one's level of winning while increasing risk of injury or exhaustion, leading to reduced effort.

Many courses in the PGA Tour rotation (including Major Championship sites like Augusta National) have added yardage to their tees in an effort to reduce the advantage of long hitters like Woods, a strategy that became known as "Tiger-Proofing". Woods said he welcomed the change, in that adding yardage to courses did not affect his ability to win.

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