Tiger Steps Off The Golf Course example essay topic

How Tiger Woods Affects the Game of Golf Like Muhammad Ali is to boxing and Michael Jordan is to basketball, Tiger Woods is considered by many to be the greatest golfer of all time. Due to his incredible playing on the course, his young age, and the endorsement deals he signed with major advertising companies, Tiger Woods' fans place him on the "best of the best" list in professional sports. Society places an enormous amount of responsibilities on its champions or favorites". Sure, he is good on the course, but how well does he support society? What does he stand for", the public says.

There is more to Tiger Woods than a good golf swing or how well he can say " Buy these shoes" in front of the advertisers' cameras. Even though Tiger would never say it, his influence over the game of golf and society as a whole far outreaches the twenty-six years he spent on the planet so far. Tiger Woods started playing golf in his garage, with a cut off club, when he was eleven months old. Now, twenty-six years later, he glides through the toughest, most widely respected golf courses in the world as if he was born to win. Golf course owners and managers change the distance from the tee-boxes to the hole in order to make the course more difficult for Tiger.

He makes most courses look easy to play well on, despite the actual level of difficulty. He is the youngest player to win the Masters Tournament in the history of golf. Tiger makes over one million per tournament in which he places in the top three golfers. The enormous amount of money as well as the magnificence of his play makes Tiger a blockbuster mega-star in the world of professional sports and beyond. His celebrity causes hordes of enthusiastic fans to not only attend the tournaments in which he plays, but also to follow his every move like a swarm of bees.

Jim Currie of the Knight-Ridder Newspaper says", they lined the fairway ropes, often five or six deep, rimmed the greens and surrounded the tee boxes- kids skipping school, adults ducking out of the office, some getting their first glimpse of professional golf, all hoping for an up-close glimpse of golf's swiftly rising star". Tiger Woods' accomplishments off the course bring as much credit to him as those on the course. Joining with his parents, Tiger created the 'Tiger Woods Foundation'. The Foundation helps underprivileged children learn morals and life lessons through golf. "The Foundation's values mirror those of Tiger Woods- Tenacity, Integrity, Courage, Self-Esteem, and Drive for Excellence", is an excerpt from the Foundations mission statement.

Tiger and his Foundation strive to foster those qualities and more in youngsters. Tiger sponsors certain golf courses that allow children under a certain age to play golf without cost to the children (the courses and the ages vary from time to time). He tours the country giving golf workshop clinics to children. The Foundation supports participative parenting and provides classes for those parents that need the information. It sponsors many parent and child golf tournaments and golf instruction as well. The Foundation focuses on relationships between parents and their children.

With the help of advertisers like Nike and American Express, Tiger steps off the golf course and into many homes, by way of televisions, radios, and newspapers, a step that brings a much more diverse audience to the game than ever. Many people that do not watch golf see Tiger and his Nike shoes or his American Express card. Since Tiger is a mixture of American Indian, European, Thai, and African-American decent, an old segregation is destroyed every time he steps on the course. Young people of various ethnic groups see Tiger Woods make a fifty-foot putt to win a tournament and they begin to look at golf as a more exciting game than they witnessed in the past. Tiger brings excitement to the game.

Excitement brings younger people out to play. The appearance of Tiger in the game of golf causes more African-American people to play the game than ever before. Tiger leads the way for every African-American who, in the past, could not enter a golf course, except to candy, because of the color of their skin. He is truly multi-racial. It seems that he only sees the green of the golf course.

On Capital Hill, there is discussion of the "Tiger Woods Bill", which proposes to give multi-racial citizens a multi-ethnic category in the eyes of the Federal Government. No one knows exactly what the future holds for Tiger woods, but some speculate. Of course, He will win more tournaments and dazzle spectators with awesome tee shots and amazing putts. He will sell more Nike Tennis shoes and American Express cards. He will continue to donate time and resources to helping the youth of our country. Maybe he will become so good at golf that the PGA will have to create a new game, as Nascar does whenever a new type of car is built.

No one could have predicted his incredible impact on both the game of golf and the society as a whole. Between spending time at the Tiger Woods Foundation and his awesome mastery of the elusive golf stroke, Tiger is well on his way to becoming an American icon along with Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Emmitt Smith, and many more sports heroes. In an interview, Michael Jordan said", Tiger will succeed and expand across all racial barriers. I admire him for establishing a higher plateau, a higher ground, if you will. I really do believe he was put here for a bigger reason than just to play golf. I don't think he is a god, but I do believe that he was sent by one".

That says everything about Tiger Woods' impact on the world.