The Tour Championship is this week. The Tour Championship is the last big tournament of the year and the one where only the top 30 money winners are qualified to play. It’s a big deal to be in this tournament, for most.
Poor Tiger is “fatigued” and is bailing on this tournament for the first time in his career. Tiger cited having to travel to Europe a couple of times at the end of this year as one reason. Yeah, flying coach to Europe is a real draining experience. You’ve got the screaming, runny nosed baby with overwhelmed mother who hasn’t slept in weeks in the window seat, Tiger in the middle seat, and a big stinky fat guy in the isle seat who takes his shoes off and stinks up the whole plane while snoring with his head resting on Tiger’s shoulder. That’s tiring.
Being in such terrible physical condition must also contribute to Tiger being so tired and not being able to golf for 4 days in the last big tournament of the year. Perhaps if Tiger hit the gym once in a while and got rid of some of that body fat he’d have a little more endurance so he’d be able to handle the incredible physical requirements of…. playing golf for 4 days.
It must also be really tiring counting all those millions of bucks for Tiger. I can see it now somewhere in Tiger Woods’ house:
Tiger: “$66,663,003 $66,663,004 $66,663,005…”
And then his Swedish model wife Elin comes in the room in a see through nightie and says “Come on Tiger, let’s go to bed.”
Tiger: “Damn it Elin! I lost count again. Now I have to start over. $1, $2, $3…”
Yup, really tiring.
On Tiger’s side he is an independent contractor and he can play whenever he wants. He did also have the death of his father Earl earlier this year so I’ll give him that. But come on.
The FedEx Cup starts next year and is supposed to prevent this type of thing from happening by offering a huge bonus of $10 million to the winner. We’ll see. It’s fairly obvious guys like Tiger & Phil Mickelson aren’t playing for the money.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem called this a “lame duck year” following the news of Tiger and also Phil bailing on The Tour Championship. I’m no expert but if the commissioner is calling it a lame duck year that’s no good. And what about the sponsors and fans? Is this really the “Tour Championship” now or just some lame duck tournament?
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HOGWire – Golf Industry News
Totally stuffs up my Fantasy Golf line-up… :p
Seriously though, if he wants to miss it why not? I think the ‘fatigued’ line is just the excuse he/his PR team came up with to make it sound plausable.
I’m guessing we’ll never know the real reason. Further, if Finchen needs Tiger there to save the ratings he is in serious trouble.
When they’ve spent the last 10 years sucking up to Tiger and putting all their eggs in his basket, then yes, the PGA tour would possibly be in serious trouble. I still don’t see how people can call him the greatest player. He can’t win with his driver – the one time he used it at the British Open and he missed yet another fairway. He can’t produce a winning record in a Ryder Cup. He hits more people in the gallery than anyone else I’ve heard of. And aside from the few events in Europe which actually count on the PGA tour schedule, he doesn’t have enough of a presence there or on any other international tour to legitimize his place in the World Rankings. World #1 would actually suggest that the player plays worldwide more often than just a token event here or there. That’s an indicator that the rankings system needs overhauled.
Folks in Atlanta are not very happy about it. My guess is the lowest-ever turn-out. Freeze-warnings this weekend will snuff out any hope for a strong showing.
JFB