Tiger Woods Photo by Getty Images

Tiger’s grip on the economic firmly exceeds his grasp of the ironic.

About the only thing Tiger Woods does better than play golf is function as an economic bellwether. There was the way the stock market used to rise after his victories, and it’s more than a little coincidental that the downturn came and deepened at the time Woods was going through his own troubles. To prove the metaphor still holds, Woods was recently seen spurning the US PGA Tour to begin his season for the first time in Abu Dhabi, feeding the current American anxiety about the loss of jobs to overseas competitors.It has become this column’s March ritual to check in on the fortunes of the world’s most famous Eldrick. For all the sound and the fury of the last few years, he remains sports’ biggest money player, earning in the vicinity of $60 million – and this is supposedly the bottom, with the comeback yet to come. The first step, a deal with a Japanese heat rub product, had a distinct end-of-Spinal Tap, big-in-Japan feel. But by the time Woods was showing signs of form late last year in Sydney and Melbourne, the new endorser announcements were flowing – long-time golf sponsor Rolex for the former Tag Heuer man, as well as start-up firm Fuse Science, a maker of a new kind of vitamin pill, which took up the prominent and pricey spot on Woods’ golf bag. (One of the commentators on The Gruen Transfer put it best – Fuse went from nothing to globally-known brand ina day by signing Woods.)

As normally apathetic Sydney crowds turned out in force for Woods at the Australian Open, his agent, Mark Steinberg, was bullish about the prospects of a Tiger turnaround. “The media tried to keep whatever story it was alive for a significant period of time ... That’s not sour grapes. I think there is significantly different sentiment in the media than the public. You come out here and there is true cheering for Tiger.”

For his part, Steinberg was proved to be the indispensable last man of Team Tiger. Wife, coach and caddie went (in that order), but the agent endured, even after Steinberg chose to depart his long-time employer, the heavyweight talent management firm IMG, for Excel Sports, which up to now specialised in representing basketball players. Woods followed Steinberg, becoming the base of the firm’s new golf division that has signed a couple of other prominent US Tour players.

Steinberg understandably wants to talk up the residual goodwill out there for his client – what’s left is for Woods to perform. The chance of this happening is about as good as it has been even pre-hydrant, with the physical and metaphysical issues that swirl around Woods having reached a reasonably calm point. To an extent, when he turns up to a tournament these days, he can just be a golfer, and not a headline, conglomerate or messiah.

Just like the secret to Apple’s success is that they do make good products, the bottom line about Woods is, in whatever state of hype, he always played really good golf. How he did it was always a bit mysterious – the 11 secret herbs and spices of the golf world, as it were – which is why the publication of the forthcoming book The Big Miss is the talk of the tour.

The author is the ousted swing coach mentioned above, Hank Haney, who is pulling back the curtain on Woods’ trade practices. Tiger’s inner circle was long covered by a code of silence – many observers were shocked there was no non-disclosure agreement between the two. Haney let it be known that, far from non-disclosure, player and coach never had a formal contract during the six years they worked together.

Woods was, not surprisingly, incensed, calling the book disappointing and unprofessional: “There have been other one-sided books about me, and I think people understand that this book is about money.” On the face of it, the claim is a stretch – it’s not exactly a salacious tome (Haney says he knew nothing of Woods’ personal life) and, if anything, the content is likely to be extremely golf-nerdy, with appeal to a limited audience.

That Tiger made these comments just before he was off to Abu Dhabi to collect another huge appearance fee wasn’t lost on anybody. Later at the tournament, he admitted that the money was a factor in determining his schedule. Woods’ grip on the economic firmly exceeds his grasp of the ironic.

‒ Jeff Centenera