This Latest Tiger (Woods) Tale Shows He’s Still “The Man” For The PGA Tour

Tiger Woods has forever been the face of the PGA Tour.

Now he’s the voice, the elder statesman, the activist, and we might add:  Defender Of The Faith.

There’s a reason The Infidels (aka Those Dasdardly Saudis) tried to buy Tiger Woods to the tune of $700-$800 million.  Tiger Woods has been, for so many decades, perhaps the world’s best-known, most recognizable star.  In the galaxy of super stars, the Woods Constellation shines the brightest.

Today he’s back at home in his Fortress Of Solitude on Jupiter Island, not too far from Rickie Fowler’s palatial digs on the Loxahatchee River.

Tiger arrived in Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon and hopped into a rented SUV with Rickie in the passenger seat (a very brave move by Rickie, allowing Tiger to drive).  They headed to downtown Wilmington and the Hotel du Pont, an iconic landmark downtown.

It was there that the Save The World From The Saudis Summit was held, with of course, Woods as the 5,000-pound elephant in the room.

By most accounts, there were 22 players in that meeting, give or take a few, most highly-ranked with the exception of Rickie, who was surely there to take notes for Tiger.  This was a continuation of a meeting held at stately Adaire Manor during the J.P. McManus soiree, prior to the Open Championship at St. Andrews.

Woods has forever been the best in the world at keeping secrets.  And of course, those admitted were sworn to secrecy.  One, un-named, high-profile, highly-ranked player summed it up best: “We basically signed a blood oath.”

“I think I’d be pretty unhappy if I saw one of those guys from last night just blabbering to you guys (media) what we talked about,” Xander Schauffele said. “That would be really frowned upon, and you probably wouldn’t get invited back to the meeting. Yeah, there’s a bit of a code there.”

Yes, the Tiger Code and there was little doubt as to who was running the show.  “It’s pretty apparent that whenever we all get in the room, there’s an alpha in there, and it’s not me,” McIlroy observed.  Will Zalatoris, another attendee, put it like this:  he called Tiger “the most powerful voice in sports.”

And that voice was obviously flexing his power on Tuesday as the meeting started around 5 p.m. and didn’t adjourn until around 8:30 p.m.

As far as takeaways, a general idea of what transpired, well, McIlroy did give a hint: “We need to get the top guys together more often than we do.”  Other than that, McIlroy added:  “I don’t think that’s for a public forum right now.  I think that’s between the players and between the executives at the Tour to try to sort of manage a way forward.”

“I am very hopeful with what’s to come,” Schauffele said.

“I don’t know exactly what the path is,” said Zalatoris, “but all I can say is you have every single person in that room who cares deeply about what’s going to happen going forward.”

And this observation from Rory touched on that:  “That’s what we’re working through, right?  What’s the short term, what’s the medium term, what’s the long term. That’s something that we have to figure out.”

This latest move by Tiger is just one indicator of his passion for the PGA Tour, its legacy as well as his own.  After all, Woods has been driving the needle, driving the train since the day he said;  “I guess it’s hello world.”

And Tiger has made his view on the LIV perfectly clear.  He doesn’t like it, doesn’t have anything good to say about it.

In the end, Tiger’s pal and younger brother surrogate, Justin Thomas, hit the nail on the head:

“If someone like him (Tiger)  is passionate about it, no offense to all of us, but that’s really all that matters.  If he’s not behind something, then one, it’s probably not a good idea in terms of the betterment of the game, but two, it’s just not going to work. He needs to be behind something.”

Et tu, Greg Norman?