2019 Masters

coremiller

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Jul 14, 2005
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You definitely nailed the most extraordinary part of his popularity. Roger Federer has a similar effect on people in tennis, but it is definitely very rare to see.


I think you're severely underrating the extent to which a nation of over a billion people worship Sachin Tendulkar as something not much less than a god, for performance in a sport that is more popular there than american football is here*. But other than him, and maybe other top-5 global soccer stars (Ronaldo certainly, Neymar has his following, Zlatan until recently, maybe Kane, Pogba, Griezmann...), it's probably not a long list among figures today and in recent memory.

Extend it back to the dawn of global sport and sport fandom, though, and I think you'd add a lot more names to the list. That's probably the start of the 20th century (football in europe, baseball and gridiron football here, plus cricket throughout the commonwealth, and the olympics once you get into the 1920s). Maybe those names wouldn't come from golf, basketball or hockey, but certainly in boxing, and perhaps elsewhere too.


* 64% of viewing sessions of sports in India are of cricket.
Sachin's popularity is mostly limited to India and, beyond that, almost entirely limited to the British Commonwealth. Of course, the Commonwealth is quite large, but outside it, Sachin is not only not an icon, he's completely unknown.

Of the current soccer stars, only Messi and Ronaldo have really reached the Ali/Jordan level of transcendent global fame. Maybe Neymar is not that far behind them. Certainly not Kane and Griezmann. 15 years ago it would have been Zidane and Beckham.

It's hard to compare pre-WW2 to post, the world was a lot less integrated culturally then. If we're going back pre-WW2, globally, then maybe Donald Bradman (at least within the British Empire), Joe Louis, and Jesse Owens would get considered. There were no real global soccer stars pre-war, certainly nothing like Pele.
 

SoxJox

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Dec 22, 2003
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Rock > SoxJox < Hard Place
Dwarfed? While we may debate back and forth on the margins, Tiger Woods is dwarfed by no one. And, to put it in a context that I believe all New Englanders and their own current 41-yo GOAT can understand...Tiger, at the age 43, did something in a sport that historically has not been kind to or rewarded longevity in terms of winning a "major".

Here is list the winners of major titles over the age of 40:
  • Age 48: Julius Boros, 1968 US PGA Championship, Pecan Valley
  • Age 46:
    • Jack Nicklaus, 1986 Masters, Augusta National
    • Old Tom Morris, 1867 Open, Prestwick
  • Age 45:
    • Hale Irwin, 1990 US Open, Medinah
    • Jerry Barber, 1961 US PGA Championship, Olympia Field
  • Age 44:
    • Lee Trevino, 1984 US PGA Championship, Shoal Creek
    • Robert De Vicenzo, 1967 Open, Royal Liverpool
    • Harry Vardon, 1914 Open, Prestwick
  • Age 43
    • Phil Mickelson, 2013 Open, Muirfield
    • Ben Crenshaw, 1995 Masters, Augusta National
    • Raymond Floyd, 1986 US Open, Shinnecock Hills
    • Julius Boros, 1963 US Open, The Country Club
    • Ted Ray, 1920 US Open, Inverness
    • Old Tom Morris, 1864 Open, Prestwick (there's that old huckster, again!)
  • Age 42:
    • Ernie Els, 2012 Open, Royal Lytham
    • Darren Clarke, 2011 Open, Royal St George’s
    • Payne Stewart, 1999 US Open, Pinehurst No. 2
    • Tom Kite, 1992 US Open, Pebble Beach
    • Gary Player, 1978 Masters, Augusta National
    • Tommy Bolt, 1958 US Open, Southern Hills
    • J.H. Taylor, 1913 Open, Royal Liverpool
    • Willie Park Sr., 1875 Open, Prestwick
  • Age 41:
    • Vijay Singh, 2004 US PGA Championship, Whistling Straits
    • Mark O’Meara, 1998 Open, Royal Birkdale
    • Mark O’Meara, 1998 Masters, Augusta National
    • Sam Snead, 1954 Masters, Augusta National
    • Henry Cotton, 1948 Open, Muirfield
    • Harry Vardon, 1911 Open, Royal St. George’s
    • Old Tom Morris, 1862 Open, Prestwick
  • Age 40:
    • Jack Nicklaus, 1980 US PGA Championship, Oak Hill
    • Jack Nicklaus, 1980 US Open, Baltusrol
    • Ben Hogan, 1953 Open, Carnoustie
    • Ben Hogan, 1953 US Open, Oakmont
    • Ben Hogan, 1953 Masters, Augusta National
    • James Braid, 1910 Open, St. Andrews
    • Old Tom Morris, 1861 Open, Prestwick
That's 36 winners over the age of 40 (actually more than what I thought when I set out to look this up, which actually gives hope to those considering his chances of winning a few more). Interesting that 5 players (Old Tom Morris (4), Ben Hogan (3), Mark O'Meara (2). Jack Nicklaus (3), and Julius Boros (2) account for 14 of those 36 wins.

There have been ~450 majors. So, roughly 8% of the winners over the years,

And, Tiger preceded this with:
  • Junior Amateur Champion: 3 consecutive years (the only 3-time winner)
  • US Amateur Champion: 3 consecutive years
  • Most Tour wins: 81...and counting, in a sport where in today's environment, 10 wins constitutes a major presence on the course
  • Second most majors: 15
  • Won all 4 major consecutively in a career Grand Slam - the youngest to accomplish
Hardly dwarfed.

Oh...and he got the gallery to help him with that pesky "loose impediment" in Scottsdale in 1999.

 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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Sep 27, 2016
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Dwarfed? While we may debate back and forth on the margins, Tiger Woods is dwarfed by no one. <...>

Here is list the winners of major titles over the age of 40: <...>

And, Tiger preceded this with: <...>

Hardly dwarfed.
No one is saying Tiger is dwarfed in his golf accomplishments, in the slightest.

I'm saying that there are some sports figures today and historically which dwarf his "popularity".

Anyway: anyone not interested in the question about who might or might not be a more popular sports figure than Tiger, might still be very interested in this extended article about his popularity in general. Snippets:
Among professional athletes for most of the early 2000s, Woods ranked with basketball icon Michael Jordan at the top of the Q Score, which rates popularity and marketing appeal. In 2008, Forbes ranked Woods No. 2 on its annual Celebrity 100 list, based on fame and money. Only Oprah Winfrey was higher.

In 2001, after he won four straight majors, Americans polled by Gallup named him as the nation's No. 1 athlete. His favorability rating was on a par with the likes of Jordan, John Glenn, Colin Powell and Pope John Paul II.

Yet Woods slipped from that perch in 2009, when his off-the-course life turned upside down with a personal scandal that led to divorce. He took a leave from golf for several months. He lost sponsorships. When he returned, he wasn't the same. His smile, swing and putting stroke were diminished.
This weekend's enthusiasm revealed a huge turnaround in that popularity. Back in 2011, he was among the least popular athletes:

...Late last summer, 16 percent of people thought of Woods positively, according to the Q Scores, while an astounding 50 percent of people thought of him negatively. Schafer noted that, since he hasn’t won, Tiger’s Q Score has gone virtually unchanged.

Michael Vick, who had the highest negative score of any athlete at 61 percent of the population, now has a 49 percent negative score, which ties Woods for the worst negative score among athletes. Vick became the Philadelphia Eagles starter, showed some flash on the field and didn’t make any major mistakes off of it.
(that's behind even Bonds and Clemens at the time)

The previous list of top scores from 2010 is a brief and interesting read on its own. I don't know what the leaderboard looks like today, but given the schmaltzy coverage tone that the Masters provides, I'd bet last weekend did Tiger some huge favors in popularity, not just his competitive relevance.
 

TFisNEXT

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Jul 21, 2005
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I expect Tiger to never leave relevancy on the top of the leaderboard in his 40's and even early 50's as long as he remains healthy.
Yeah I can buy this. Health is obviously a huge if.

Mickelson has remained relevant and frequently is in contention in his late 40s (48 now?) for a pretty decent comp...Tiger is more talented than Phil too so if health remains on his side then I'd expect him to threaten being the oldest major winner.
 

johnmd20

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Yeah I can buy this. Health is obviously a huge if.

Mickelson has remained relevant and frequently is in contention in his late 40s (48 now?) for a pretty decent comp...Tiger is more talented than Phil too so if health remains on his side then I'd expect him to threaten being the oldest major winner.
And as relevant as Phil has been, he's got a total of 2 PGA tour wins since the start of the 2014 golf season.
 

Deathofthebambino

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Apr 12, 2005
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Golf became a "global sport" because of Tiger Woods. Tiger didn't get popular in a global sport. He is the reason there are new public courses in this country, and in roughly 100's of others. The South Korean women aren't dominating the LPGA Tour if Tiger wasn't the face of the golf world from 1996-2008. Every guy in the field should be paying him a vig on every dollar they make. Greg Norman was the leading money winner on Tour in 1995 with 1.9m in earnings. Tiger just made that in 4 days, and in almost every of the 46 PGA sanctioned events, the winner can count on at least 70% of the money it took Norman a year to make.

He literally changed the face of an entire sport, and brought that sport to the masses on multiple continents. Ali, Jordan, Tiger, Pele, Messi, Ronaldo and then you can go from there. Whether or not people liked Tiger in the US, hated him, loved him, it's all irrelevant to the billions around the world that worshiped him and wanted to grow up to be like him. There is a reason Tiger made 10x's the amount of money he made playing golf selling products for companies like Nike that made billions on him.

He literally changed the landscape of the planet with the number of golf courses that started sprouting up worldwide during his reign. Even in the US, the numbers were dramatic, as this article done by Golf Digest shows (it shows a lot actually). And you have to read it thinking about the fact that it was written 2 years ago, before anyone thought a comeback was truly possible. If Tiger stays healthy a few years, and starts winning regularly, the worldwide phenomenon will return, for everyone who was too young then, to understand it now.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/what-golf-looked-like-before-tiger-woods-turned-pro-and-changed-the-game-forever

And I'm so fucking psyched to even have a chance at seeing it all happen again.

Edit: I will say it couldn't have been a more brilliant pairing for the golf world at the time than to have Tiger Woods as the face for the men, and Annika Sorenstam as international face for women. Annika is a big part of the crossover appeal Tiger got worldwide. Other than a couple of Stacy Lewis wins, the LPGA Tour has been dominated by international players since Annika. Prior to that, Americans had won every single POY award on Tour, except one.
 
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Papelbon's Poutine

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Dec 4, 2005
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And to second that, when he ‘went away’ - for whatever, injuries, scandals, what have you - the amount of money generated by the golf industry dropped significantly, including memberships and course closures. Causation or correlation? I lean towards the former.