Leading golf exec on why Tiger factor is still a big issue

Golf young guns Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day have been pivotal in drawing a wide audience, but the sport is missing the 'Tiger' factor when it comes to 'fringe fans', says a leading golf executive.

It’s been six long months since Tiger has competed, although we did see evidence of him hitting balls last week.

But according to Ken Kennerly, executive director of the PGA Tour event at Palm Beach which is being played now: "You can never replace Tiger Woods, just like you can't replace Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player.”

Yes, we get that, but they have all been replaced over time. It’s not as if Jack, Arnold and Gary are still knocking it around today. So, what’s his point?

"Tiger, it's difficult to replace him. In my opinion, without him in the game, we're missing something. Tiger Woods is still Tiger Woods, and when he showed up at the Wyndham Championship last year in August and played well, and was in one of the last couple of final groups the ratings were off the charts."

Woods had his best tournament in nearly two years at the Wyndham Championship in North Carolina, before blowing up on the 11^th on the final day with a triple bogey.

"Does it minimise the negative impact that Tiger has by not participating? Probably a little," said Kennerly, who is also a golf executive with sports management company IMG.

"He still delivers that fringe fan that golf needs. We saw it directly when Tiger hurt himself and couldn't play last year's [event] ... the spike in ticket sales we normally get leading up to the tournament had softened a little bit. What does that mean in dollars and cents? Probably a couple of hundred thousand dollars that we did not see, that would have come through the gates because people still wanted to see Tiger. He is still an enormous asset for this game."

Kennerly does recognise the draw of the new breed: "Luckily with Rory and Rickie and Jordan and Jason Day, and Bubba and Adam Scott, and all these guys ... we have great young players that are certainly carrying their own weight.”

"Look at Rickie Fowler, what he's done this year. They (Spieth, Day and McIlroy) came out very boldly with talk of the next 'Big Three', and then Rickie rebounded. He made a statement [in Abu Dhabi] and then at Phoenix a couple of weeks ago where he almost won."

We think this is a bit of an out dated point of view. Of course Tiger has been incredibly important to golf, especially in terms of a TV audience and connecting with a non- traditional golfing audience.

For years Tiger did the heavy lifting for golf marketing globally, whilst the rest of the industry completely failed to keep up with the opportunity he was creating. The industry was still working out whether or not allowing women in was a good idea, and why it might just be a good idea to encourage juniors.

Yes, Tiger the big TV-draw may be on the wane. But now it’s time for the golf world to pull it’s collective finger out and properly back the new breed. It’s never had suc a better second opportunity – grab it now or forget yourselves.

Golf exec's: what do they know?

For more on the new big 3, or is it now 4, click here or on the image below.

Two of the big three or is it four, at Dubai.