When Nike Believed in Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods and Nike have a long association, dates back to 1996, when Woods made his professional debut and at age 21, Woods was rewarded 40-million-dollar sponsorship deal by Nike and as years passed by Tiger Woods value in the corporate world was increased tremendously following a 13 years long dominance in golf were the American stayed no. 1 for a record 683 weeks.
During his peak time, Woods was winning a minimum of five tournaments per year but at the same time he was getting too many injuries and his darkest period was 2009 sex scandal where Woods lost majority of sponsors like A&T INC., Gillette, Buick, Gatorade, Accenture and Tag Heuer.
Only a handful of companies choose not to leave Woods during his tough time and Nike was one of them and the next four years was very difficult for Nike to have faith in their brand ambassador Tiger Woods because from 2014-2017 Woods didn’t won a single event and his win tally was stuck at 79 PGA Tour wins and it was difficult to believe that the same man was once chasing Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors (4 more than Tiger Woods) and now he was barely making cuts after 2013, despite all this Nike never deserted him and continued to sponsor Woods. In 2016, Nike stopped making clubs, balls, bags and continued suppling apparel to their athletes (including Tiger Woods) so, Woods had to shift to Bridgestone, Taylor Made and Monster for balls, clubs and bags respectively.
An era had passed, it was almost certainty that Woods was not going win another event in his professional golf career and critics were damn sure about it and the year of 2018 was some hope for Woods as he won his first PGA tour event after five years and got a total of seven top ten that year and made a huge leap in Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) to 13 for 2018 year-end rank which was far better than 2017 year-end rank of 657. This was the return of Woods to the international scene after a decade long struggle and 2019 looked promising for Woods.
Tiger Woods started 2019 by finishing T20 in Farmers Insurance Open followed by three top thirties and solid T5 finish in World Golf Championship and after having a great outing in his first six tournaments, Woods went to Augusta National Golf Club for season’s first major and to everyone’s surprise Woods won the Masters for the fifth time in his career and his first major triumph in eleven years and finally Nike’s trust was paid off and soon after the victory Nike, made a commercial showing Tiger Woods over the years and the 53 second video said “To think a 43-year-old who has experienced every high and every low, and has just won his 15th major, is chasing the same dream as a three-year-old,” and the dream is to beat Niklaus’s god level record of 18 majors.
Tiger Woods celebrating his 2019 Masters win (Photo Credit: Augusta.com).
Tiger Woods battled all these years of physical and mental pain to become a major champion once again and the partnership that started in 1996 is still going on after 25 years.
[COVER PHOTO CREDIT: MEDIUM.COM]
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February 07, 2021 - By Dhruv Trivedi