The final question from Tiger Woods’ Tuesday press conference during the Hero World Challenge yielded an unexpectedly poignant answer.
“You are chairman of the Future Competitions committee,” a reporter began. “I would personally like to know what your motivation is to make a major contribution to the power of the PGA Tour?”
It is a question at the heart of the present and future of professional men’s golf. Woods, of course, has enough money, prestige and time to do just about anything, but he has chosen to fill his days with Zoom calls and strategy meetings in an attempt to reinvent a tour where his own competitive days are numbered. Is Woods careless with his time? Nobody thinks that. But no one knew how carefully he had been considering his decision to work as a golf bureaucrat. Not before Woods answered the question.
“Well, the PGA Tour gave me the opportunity to pursue a childhood dream,” he said. “I had the opportunity to hit my first ball at my first PGA Tour event when I was 16 years old. I know that was 33 years ago, but I’ve been involved with the PGA Tour ever since.”
“A little kid from Cypress, California, who grew up on a par-3 course, had the opportunity to play against the best players in the world and reach No. 1 in the world. I had the opportunity to be involved in a lot of different things on our Tour. This is another opportunity to make an impact on the Tour.
“I did it with my golf clubs, I made a few putts here and there and I was able to do that. Now I can make an impact in a different way for other generations. Not just for the generations I played against, but for generations to come. Like a 16-year-old looking for a place to play, maybe hoping to play on the PGA Tour.”
Woods’ monologue touched on a theme we haven’t heard much lately: that the PGA Tour isn’t… [winces] product that is needed [winces again] optimization and [bangs head on desk] profit maximization. It made us wonder if the PGA Tour might also be something completely different: a place where childhood dreams come true.
As Woods reminded us, his first Tour appearance came 33 years ago. He will soon be 50, which means he has lived two-thirds of his life as a PGA Tour golfer. We are all old, but everyone fears the age when time is measured in multiples and fractions. Like this one: Woods has lived more than half his life since he first hosted the Hero World Challenge tournament; he launched his first invitation to a limited number of participants at the age of 24… 25 years ago. In this year’s field, only Akshay Bhatia – who turns 24 next month – is younger than Woods was then. Tom Lehman won the Williams World Challenge in 2000. He is now 66. Again, we are all old.
“The guys I played with when we first had the World Challenge in the early 2000s are all — I’m the youngest,” Woods said. “I’m about to turn 50, so those guys are all on the Champions Tour or even retired from golf. They don’t play anymore.”
A look around the media center was a reminder that Woods’ longevity isn’t just about the players; he has outlived virtually everyone. Reporters, Tour officials, industry trends. How many newspapers had golf writers covering that first event? By my count there were zero this time.
Time wins and time changes. Hearing Woods in the Bahamas only reinforced these truths. The last member of the old guard is now responsible for leading a coalition that is taking a bulldozer – or at least a pair of sharpened scissors – to the Tour schedule and structure as we know it. The ultimate insider seems unlikely to rethink the current structure, but that is Woods’ directive as chairman of the new Future Competition Committee, whose stated goal is to create an “optimal competitive model” for professional golf.
“I mean, to be honest, we started with a clean slate,” Woods said. “What would be the best product we could make? What would it look like?”
Enter his partner-in-revolution, the PGA Tour’s new CEO, Brian Rolapp.
In generations past, candidates for Tour commissioner were judged on an unofficial rubric that included qualities like “golf background” and “golf handicap.” Rolapp, who was the NFL’s No. 2 prospect before taking the Tour’s top job this summer, is woefully unqualified by those metrics but is the envy of the sports world on almost every other count. In these strange times of golf, Rolapp’s golf inexperience is seen as an advantage rather than a hindrance. His outside perspective means he has a fresh perspective. He and Woods make an unlikely pair, but as the ultimate insider and ultimate outsider, they may also be perfectly complementary.
On Tuesday evening in Albany – the glitzy, exclusive Bahamas getaway that hosts Hero – Woods and Rolapp led an on-site meeting for players on the Future Competitions Committee’s progress. The subtext was clear: the two leaders of the Tour would consider the future.
Since his appointment, Tour pros have consistently described Rolapp with two words: “impressive” and “direct.” Not least due to a general distrust of the Tour’s leadership since the surprise LIV peace accords of June 2023, players are making these two traits sound like a ringing endorsement. The FCC’s plans have not yet been finalized, but an unofficial poll of players on Wednesday yielded positive reviews of the process and its implementation. Rolapp is transparent. He makes things sound simple. He is aware of the power of tradition, but is not personally bound by it. He is a pragmatist with a laser focus. And every player on the ground was reportedly present at the meeting, a small but critical show of credibility.
Scottie Scheffler praised Rolapp’s smarts and his work ethic.
“I’m very satisfied with the conversations I’ve had with him, the things I’ve heard,” the world number 1 said. “I think they’re looking at things the right way and I’m excited about some of the changes they want to make.”
Keegan Bradley praised his urgency.
“I think Brian is trying to make changes right away and he definitely has a great vision to make the Tour the best it can be,” the Ryder Cup captain said. “I love that we’re not waiting, as if this doesn’t mean, ‘we’ll change in three, four years.’ No, we will do this next year.”
As for Woods’ assessment?
“Brian was fantastic,” he said. “What he has done in a short space of time so far with his leadership qualities and his personality and how he handles situations, his calmness, his thoughtfulness, his directness, transparency, all the things that we were looking for and that we needed on the Tour – he has delivered in spades.”
Now comes the hard part: action.
Rolapp has met with dozens of Tour professionals one-on-one, in person or over the phone. There are concerns about changes on the horizon, but many players have resigned themselves to it. After all, there is widespread awareness that the Tour has been operating inefficiently for decades — the product of another old guard that revered traditions even when they didn’t always make sense. Why is every event owned and managed by someone else? Why isn’t the Tour in Chicago or Boston or Seattle or New York? Why is the Tour in Memphis in August? What does it actually mean to win a PGA Tour event when you have Signature Events and Alternate Events? Some things could use simplification. Some traditions could use a shake-up. Time wins and time changes.
This is why Tiger Woods became a bureaucrat, and this is why he worries about Zoom calls: because he knows that the old guard will eventually be replaced — even if the old guard is Tiger Woods.
But the childhood dream lives on.
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