Tiger Woods: The Anna Kournikova of golf?
Tiger Woods and Anna Kournikova are two sports celebrities that have been in the media limelight for all the wrong reasons. In fact until earlier this year one would have never dreamed of ever comparing the two stars who had nothing in common as far as their
career graphs were concerned.
On one side we have Tiger Woods, the man whose achievements seemed surreal almost. Number uno golf player in the world and perhaps rightly thought of as the greatest athlete of all times. He is the man solely responsible for pulling golf out of the shadows
of obscurity and giving birth to a generation of golf fanatics. Golf as a sport could finally stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of cricket and football. Woods won all our hearts over with his innocent looks and his extraordinary accomplishments.
Anna Kournikova on the other hand was a decent but not amazing tennis player. She never won many titles; the peak of her career was her becoming the world number one in 2000 but what she lacked in talent she more than made up for with her looks. Kournikova
was perhaps a breath of fresh air in a world of women’s sport where the players were respected and admired for their achievements and talent but at the same time weren’t exactly easy on the eyes. Along came Kournikova who wasn’t just pretty but had a lot of
s*x appeal.
Anna realized at the early stage of her career that it wasn’t really all about achieving victory after victory, but about playing to the crowd. She gave the audience what they wanted and can be credited for increasing the popularity of the sport massively.
Men, who had previously been uninterested in the sport, were now tuning in especially to watch her matches. All the women wanted to be her and all the men wanted to be with her.
Kournikova became the most searched celebrity on Google with her huge male fan following constantly searching for pictures of her. So how does Tiger Woods fit into our story? Well this year Tiger Woods also earned the honour of being the most searched topic
on the internet due to his several sexual misadventures.
Tiger Woods our knight in shining armour became the evil witch overnight. While the news hurt Tiger’s career significantly, golf has come out with a greater following than ever before. If nothing else Tiger’s misadventures have turned the eyes of audiences
around the world on golf. Viewership has gone through the roof as people tune in breathlessly to watch Tiger struggle to get his career back on track.
While polls show that Tiger’s popularity has gone done, with 40 percent of fans having an unfavourable view of him, the game of golf has experienced increased viewership for we do love a good scandal and Tiger’s 121 extra marital affairs has been the spiciest
scandal of the century.
However, it is feared that without another strong personality to fill in the void left by Woods, the sport will suffer a massive set back. Already a pattern of spikes in viewership of only “Tiger Woods golf events” is emerging with people paying little attention
to other golf news. Therefore, this may very well be the start of the decline of the game and it may very well fade into the background again.
The two stars have not only affected their respective sports but also changed the way people perceive sports personality as a whole and have had massive social impacts as well.
Athletes who were supposed to teach our kids lessons in uprightness, hard work, endurance of human spirit and discipline have become perfect examples of exactly the opposite. In fact sports that used to be considered as singular checks that focused energies
on productive outcomes and kept youngsters out of many amoral and counter-productive pursuits have become breeding grounds for problems such as gambling, extra marital affairs, steroids, drugs etc.
In a world that is increasingly focused on material things and Teenage girls are under a lot of pressure to look like size zero models; Sports women seemed to be the only decent role models. The kids were taught that the world needs a lot more than looks
and talent and hard work went a long way and then along came Anna and many other successive female sports stars that have given the lesson zero credibility.
Indeed it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between movie and TV stars and sports personalities anymore.
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