The ‘Tiger Effect’

This real-world inspiration for the video-game-world “Tiger shot” prompted the PGA Tour to begin “Tiger-proofing” golf courses that hosted its events. It partly had to do with distance: Course designers never could have anticipated Woods’s ability to bomb the ball off the tee with his accuracy and thereby shorten holes, making them unintentionally easy to play. The game then turned into a forearms race and an equipment war, with Tiger’s advancements inspiring the next generation of players to strength-train and club-manufacturers to experiment. Everyone and everything caught up, to the point that one of the contemporary examples of “Tiger-proofing” is the 14th hole at East Lake Golf Club, which was the site of last weekend’s Tour Championship: a 520-yard par 4, which 20 years ago was the length of a standard par 5. (“[It] will play much shorter than the yardage as the drive will pitch forward on the downslope of the fairway,” the PGA predicted. Yeah. Whatever.)

So “Tiger-proofing” was a response to “Tiger shots,” whose influence on the game’s competitive balance was apparent when Woods won—wait for it—the “Tiger slam” between 2000 and 2001. Capturing all four of the PGA’s major championships in one calendar year is called a “grand slam.” Tiger has never done this—no one has, after the Masters was created in 1934—but he became the first man to hold the U.S. Open, British Open, PGA Championship (2000), and Masters (2001) titles simultaneously. This feat needed a name, and “Tiger slam” worked, since no rival could lay claim to the naming rights. It’s doubtful anyone ever will.

This level of dominance and the flair Tiger displayed to reach it—the creative shots from impossible lies, the clutch putts punctuated with fist pumps, the edge he introduced to a clubby game—why, it brought about a generation of loyal, enthusiastic followers who root, root, rooted at volumes unheard of in professional golf. When Tiger Woods lofted some reckless shot from a bunker across a water hazard to within 20 feet of the pin or sank a birdie on the final hole of the U.S. Open to force a playoff, both the moment and the man, equally worthy of each other, elicited a one-of-a-kind scream whose octave was genderless and genre was freestyle. If only there was a fitting term for such a cheer … oh, yes. Of course.

“It’s pretty apparent what a ‘Tiger roar’ is,” said former world-number-one Justin Thomas a month ago.

“Tiger shots,” “Tiger-proofing,” “Tiger roars”—all these “Tiger things” have compiled over the years as evidence of what one may call a general “Tiger effect.” There are legacy examples of this effect: Without Tiger, golf holes never would’ve been redesigned to become expeditions. Then there are temporary examples of it: Without Tiger, business dries up. And with him, it flourishes. Advertisers measure this in Nielsen ratings, Ticketmaster measures it in grounds-pass sales, Nike measures it in purchases of red polo shirts … Local media (in St. Louis, site of August’s PGA Championship), golf media (Golf Digest, Golfweek), and business media (FOX Business, CNBC) have covered the trend’s latest upswing the last few weeks, after Woods posted his best result in a major in nine years at the PGA. The “Tiger effect,” at its most basic definition, is what happens to professional golf as a result of his presence minus what happens in his absence.

But this means that finances aren’t the only way to gauge the effect in the short term. There is an obvious “Tiger effect” on the golf course, too: an effect that’s in the moment, which concerns the play of the game and the aura of the game, not the money of the game. His participation is a catalyst for incidents that only he could cause. And because all this is qualitative, not quantitative, it’s difficult to describe—almost ineffable. The economic component of the “Tiger effect” is “all this delicious money he makes for the tournament sponsors.” The golfing component of it, though, is abstract. The best that one can do is provide anecdotes or frames of reference. How do you explain what it’s like to see The Beatles walk into Ed Sullivan’s theater? How do you explain that such a comparison arguably isn’t overdoing it? How do you explain being enraptured without feeling it yourself?

Let’s take a crack at putting the Tiger effect, as it transpires on the golf course, into words.

Woods scored his first PGA victory in five years on Sunday at the aforementioned Tour Championship, held at East Lake in Atlanta. Two shots clear of the field on the final hole, he walked toward the 18th green trailed by a jubilant horde that was allowed to follow the final pairing of Woods and Rory McIlroy. This was among the most visceral examples of the Tiger effect on record. As meaningful as the Tour Championship is—it’s the last event of the season, as well as the conclusion of a four-tournament playoff that pays $10 million for first prize—it is not the sort of prestigious competition for which fans typically lose their s—. Yet a colony of people gathered in the fairway to stride behind Tiger, and it grew with each step, even though the only Snapchat footage anyone could take beyond the third rank was of someone’s shirt collar. Tiger was to Atlanta what Rocky was to Philadelphia.

But this example of the Tiger effect was picked up by TV cameras (naturally, given that it was a moment to hail the conquering hero). What about the examples that aren’t? They exist abundantly. And they have to be seen and heard in-person to comprehend how Woods can change the local atmosphere of a golf course. He did that here and there on Sunday between the second and 16th holes, the latter a peculiar stadium-like par-3 that’s raucous no matter who is playing. On Saturday, though … on Saturday, he sent the front-nine crowds into paroxysms of joy, practically winning the golf tournament in a span of seven holes. The fourth round’s purpose was only to make the victory official.

To set the scene: Woods has just birdied the third hole of the third round, putting him -2 for the day and -9 for the tournament. Not only is his overall score good enough for first in the field—it’s three shots clear of his playing partner, Justin Rose, who was tied with him for the lead about 30 minutes ago and now is drifting in second place. In the prime of Tiger’s career, this was about the time that he and his zealots could sniff an opportunity to run away with an event. He often followed through so thoroughly that it was like witnessing an Olympian break a world record and then pulverize what was left of it: lift 500 pounds when 490 was the previous mark, but then lift 510 and 520 for good measure. During his most overwhelming run, the spring and summer of 2000, Woods won events by 5, 15, 8, and 11 strokes. He conditioned people to believe he would lay waste to a field if he had an opening to do so.

So after he made his birdie at three, the Tiger effect appeared. Rose made a short birdie putt to match scores with Woods—and the gallery responded by cheering for Tiger. Provably. It sounds so obviously out of place to hear let’s go Tigaaaaaaaaah! and variations on the exclamation—several of them—cut through cheers for the other guy, who is a well-mannered dude and a famous player (the world number one!) and just did something good, which, in the etiquette of golf, calls for the patrons to focus their applause on him. But because they are just agog to see what Tiger pulls off next, they can’t go even five seconds—literally, five—clapping for the other guy before they start spontaneously hooting and hollering for Woods again. Rose’s ball clunks around the plastic in the hole, the spectators (the chorus of them) make that fully-throated yeah noise—which is not the noise that accompanies making a four-foot putt—and they season it with all those direct appeals for Tiger to “go” or “get it.”

Next is when they shout “mashed potatoes!” Oh yes, these fans are hungry. Now it’s the fourth tee box. Tiger has the “honors” to go first, having scored better than Rose on the last hole that they didn’t tie. He pings the ball—and the crowd immediately erupts (hooah!, whooo!, and mashed potatoes!). A rock band is greeted with less promptness, and those celebrities are recognizable right away: The stadium lights go dark, the crowd senses a change in the air, and the lead singer rumbles to the mic. When Tiger hits a tee shot (or anyone, for that matter), no one knows anything right away—if the ball is going left or right or if his heart is about to turn into a fireball. All that’s evident is that he made contact—but because it’s Tiger Woods who made contact, the result must be good. Maybe it’s the power of positive thinking at work, since the shot goes 288 yards to the left side of the fairway.

This notion that what Tiger does matters causes commentators and casual golf fans (who overlap 98 percent with Tiger enthusiasts) to suggest that only Tiger is capable of certain feats. It’s a distorted view—lots of these guys can execute sensational shots (it’s the frequency with which Tiger can do them that’s the difference). Case in point: At the fifth hole on Saturday, Australian golfer Cameron Smith yanked his tee shot into the mulch way left of the fairway. The pin was about 185 yards away and located front-left on a green protected by sand. Smith’s ball was obstructed by trees—it was certainly his best bet to pitch his ball to safety and basically ensure a score of no worse than bogey. But he had a narrow opening around the trunks and limbs to play a cut shot he could bend past the remaining danger lining the fairway between him and the green. If he plopped it in that bunker protecting the hole, though, it’d be a tough up-and-down for par, with little green to work with; if he flew it long, he ran the risk of sending his ball down a hill toward a TV truck. To a pro, it sounds like fun.

Smith, who was out of contention anyway, went for it: The crowd around him oohed and ahhed the shot just for it clearing the trees, but a separate patch of fans closer to the green, who couldn’t even see Smith, watched the ball sail over their heads, murmured that this may be really good, and let out a collective oh! (as in OMG) as it landed behind the pin and somehow spun to about 20 feet for birdie. There were no TV crews on the ground and there are no accounts of the shot—only a man in an orange Clemson shirt who got video on his smartphone and began showing it to everyone along the rope line.

If Tiger Woods had done this … we’d be talking about it until November. We’d be saying that no one but him could possibly pull it off. And because watching golf in-person asks the question, If a tree fell in the woods, did it really happen? —it’s just about impossible to witness several shots clearly without having one particular hole staked out—we’d probably convince ourselves that we’re right. But 20 years ago, it may truly have been the case that only Tiger, with his singular imagination and guts, could have envisioned a high cut through and above a tree line to a 6-yard spot between the rough and the flagstick 185 yards away, talked himself into believing it was reasonable to try, and gotten it done. Someone has to light the way, right? There’s that Tiger effect again.

Woods birdies four, after the 288-yard tee shot and an approach to 21 feet—the Tiger roar is audible several hundred yards away and someone utters “10-under” as soon as it’s heard. Now he’s four up. He stripes his tee ball at the fifth hole 319 yards to the center-left portion of the fairway (hooah!, whooo!, and mashed potatoes!). People outside the tee box scurry down the grass with him, now just expecting to see Woods throw darts at the pin—bearing in mind he hasn’t done anything like this on a weekend in more than a half-decade and it was all but concluded about a year ago that his career was finished. As in, “coming off multiple back surgeries and now in his 40s” finished. But somehow Tiger is doing this. A pitching wedge, from 125 yards, settles to seven feet, directly over the flag stick. He sinks the putt (every one of these is bisecting the hole, leaving no doubt that it will drop). Now he’s birdied three in a row and four of the first five. Rose, again—a gamer, this guy—follows it up with a short birdie putt of his own to keep pace, four back. The crowd lets out a Let’s go Tigaaaaaaaaah!

It continues like this, Tiger shepherding humanity to come watch him humiliate a tough, long golf course with fast greens not too far removed from a major championship-level challenge. At the par-5 sixth, he gets up and down from a bunker for birdie. At the par-four seventh, he knocks his tee shot into a fairway bunker—and still flies his approach over another sand trap protecting the hole on the front-left of the green to about five feet. This shot may be the silliest of the day he’s hit. He makes the putt. Five birdies in a row. Six under on the day through seven holes. He’s five ahead of second place.

But it’s beyond possibility for anyone, even Tiger, to maintain this sort of pace on a course this challenging. The low round for the week anyone posts turns out to be five-under 65, which was achieved seven times, twice by Tiger. Had he just parred the rest of the way on Saturday from holes 8 to 18, Woods would’ve turned in a 64. Instead, he bogeyed the ninth, and birdied and bogeyed one each on the closing nine, ending at -12 overall. His lead shrank from five to three. But according to one of those stats that’s measurable only because Tiger has done it often enough, a three-shot cushion is all he really was looking for. He was 42-2 all-time with the lead going into the final round before Sunday—and he had never lost when the edge was more than two strokes.

Tiger takes the air out of his competition and gives it to his fans to breathe—McIlroy, his playing partner on Sunday who began the day at -9, shot a +4, 74. Rose, his playing partner from the previous day, who also began at -9, shot a +3, 73. Tiger didn’t need to break par, and he didn’t, shooting a +1, 71 to win by two shots. It recalled the old days, when he could win a 72-hole event in only 54, creating an air of inevitability—the Tiger effect that’s only palpable through being the recipient of it.