Tiger Woods was left stunned here Tuesday after Australian fans and media gave golf’s world number one a rapturous welcome ahead of his first tournament appearance Down Under for 11 years.
Thousands of fans turned out to watch Woods practice at the Kingston Heath course here in the lead-up to Thursday’s European Tour co-sanctioned Australian Masters, while television helicopters recorded his every move from overhead.
”No, it’s not normal. Trust me, it’s not. Thank God, it’s not normal,” Woods said when asked if the reception he had received in famously sports-loving Australia was par for the course.
”You don’t normally see this many people at a practice round certainly, maybe at a major championship you might see this many people.
”I’ve never experienced the helicopters before, they were overhead but they didn’t interfere with my play.”
Tournament organisers paid a reported $3-million to luring the 14-time major winner to Melbourne, and the investment appears to have already paid huge dividends.
Huge galleries not seen since the heyday of local golfing idol Greg Norman in 1980s are expected to follow Woods this week and media interest has been intense, giving Australian golf a much-needed fillip.
Such is the clamour to see Woods play this week that all 25 000 tickets for each of the four days were snapped up early last month.
Woods, 33, has yet to win a tournament in Australia, but he has not played here since the 1998 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne, and he expressed genuine enthusiasm on Tuesday about being back.
”It’s an unbelievable golf course, we don’t get a chance to play at venues like this and it is truly a treat to play the [Melbourne] sandbelt golf courses, the bunkering is just phenomenal,” Woods said.
”You would never get a chance to see bunkering like this any other place in the world.
”I just love coming down here. You don’t need a golf course to be 7 500 yards to be hard, you can build it just like this and having it nice and tricky.”
Woods was tied for eighth when he last played in the Masters at nearby Huntingdale in 1997.
He comes into the Australian Masters after finishing tied for sixth behind American world number two Phil Mickelson at the World Golf Championships in Shanghai last weekend.
With all the focus on the appearance of golf’s one-billion-dollar man, a host of leading Australian golfers who are in Melbourne have been relegated to support acts.
Members of Australia’s elite who will seek to steal Woods’ thunder this week include Geoff Ogilvy, ranked 12 in the world, Michael Sim (59), Adam Scott (62), Mathew Goggin (69) and defending champion Rod Pampling (102).
With such intense interest in the world number one ahead of the tournament, Australian officials have reason to be optimistic there will be no repeat of a disastrous flop in neighbouring New Zealand in 2002.
Woods was paid a reported $2,25 million to play in the 2002 New Zealand Open but expensive tickets and poor weather kept crowds well below the organisers’ break-even figure and they incurred heavy financial losses.
Part of the Australian organisers’ strategy was to cap ticket prices at $44 per round, principally because Woods’s appearance had been largely subsidised by taxpayer money. — Sapa-AFP