Already within the remaining chapter of one in all golf’s biggest careers, Tiger Woods might have penned a surprising finish to that story on Tuesday when the winner of 15 majors was concerned in a single-car crash and brought to the hospital with a number of accidents.
Battered by years of again and knee surgical procedures, Woods has just lately spent as a lot time away from the PGA Tour recovering from damage as he has on the course, offering the golf world an unsettling glimpse of what the longer term would possibly appear to be with out its largest drawing card.
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Tiger Woods recovering in hospital after struggling a number of leg accidents in automobile crash
“I feel golf has accommodated the truth that Tiger is now not going to be lively in attending occasions frequently,” Neal Pilson, the pinnacle of Pilson Communications and former president of CBS Sports activities, informed Reuters. “I feel he has lifetime exemptions at each main occasion however I think we’re most likely not going to see Tiger in a aggressive golf occasion going ahead.
“In his prime, it was clearly established if Tiger was taking part in on Sunday, numbers for Sunday protection had been often up 25 to 30%,” Pilson stated. “If he doesn’t play once more, he shall be missed for positive.”
Virtually for the reason that second he burst on the skilled scene in 1996, Woods has been the tide that raised all boats, a crossover star who drove tv rankings, purses and endorsements to spectacular heights.
With extra viewers got here extra sponsors and bigger purses, with Woods creating a brand new class of {golfing} millionaires.
That recognition made Woods one in all sports activities’ richest athletes, Forbes anointing him in 2009 as the primary athlete to succeed in $1 billion in profession earnings (prize cash and endorsements).
Together with accidents, the 45-year-old has survived a number of scandals all through his profession together with a 2017 arrest on a cost of driving inebriated or medicine.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva stated on Tuesday there was no indication that Woods was underneath the affect of any substances on the time of the accident.
If Tuesday’s automobile crash was purely an accident, and even when it impacts Woods’ skill to play golf sooner or later, his longtime sponsors might stick by him, stated Patrick Rishe, director of the sports activities enterprise program at Washington College in St. Louis.
“Due to his historic success, there’s nonetheless worth in partnering with him,” Rishe stated. “There’s loads of athletes who’re nonetheless model endorsers who’ve lengthy been retired.”
Revolutionized golf
For greater than a decade, golf has waited for Woods’ successor to emerge from a crop of prodigious hitters and expert younger gamers, however none has been in a position to grasp his mantle or the creativeness of {the golfing} public.
There have been indicators Woods had been on the cusp of passing the torch — and to not world No. 1 Dustin Johnson or Rory McIlroy however to his son Charlie, once they partnered final November within the PNC Championship, a joint PGA/LPGA Tour household event.
The 11-year-old Woods confirmed he had a few of his father’s {golfing} genes, from the twirl of his membership to strolling in a birdie putt.
The best golfer of his technology, Woods, as the sport’s first African-American celebrity, did greater than rewrite the file ebook however modified the best way golf is performed and appeared, bringing variety to a sport that had been the area of the white center class.
With never-before-seen energy, Woods revolutionized the sport, forcing gold programs, even iconic Augusta Nationwide, to Tiger-proof layouts.
Whereas Woods seems to have one other lengthy, grueling highway again to health in entrance of him, one of many hallmarks of his exceptional profession has been resilience.
Former President Barack Obama wished Woods a speedy restoration in a tweet on Tuesday night time, including: If we’ve discovered something over time, it’s to by no means depend Tiger out.”
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto; Extra reporting by Sheila Dang;; Enhancing by Peter Cooney)
