IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?

To say that many were counting on Tiger to become a pied piper for the sport as he made his first pro start would be re-writing history. Sure the potential was there, but it wasn’t until a year or so later, when Woods was a proven winner who brought golf from a tiny spot in the back of the sports page to front of the section—and even the front page of the entire paper—that predictions of a spike in participation were made in earnest. Yet for all those who presumed Tiger would bring the masses to the game, a handful also cautioned that Tiger’s star might attract short-term interest, but not necessarily long-term gains in participants, the numbers seem to bare out: