This subject comes up constantly amongst the golf industry connection I visit with daily. Seems there is a concern on what will happen to golf when Tiger retires. Some are doomsday proponents and others look forward to the day.
Some look back to when Byron Nelson at the age of 34 retired from professional golf. Back in his day, he was the Tiger Woods of golf. Seems many are concern that not very many of today’s touring professionals are stunning the golf scene like Tiger did. Many are worried that those who came to golf when Tiger entered the scene will leave the day he hangs up his spikes.
There are examples given frequently about youngsters in the junior golf ranks who are future ‘Tiger Hunters’. However, they decide the pressure that is put on them to play at his level is too great and by the time they get old enough to take the stage are burnt out on golf.
Of course there are those who feel Tiger will never retire and will just pull back to the minimum of events he has to play to keep his card and then go on into the Champions tour..or whatever it will be called in 18 years when he gets to that age. This results into a different discussion that also leads to questions to golf’s survivability without Tiger, but I will leave that for another blog.
I am sure everyone has an opinion on what they feel golf will look like once Tiger has left the stage. Let me know what you think.