Eavesdropping On Rory And Tiger: Were They Aware They Could Be Heard?

Mind you, I'm not complaining. But since the streaming feed of the Rory McIlroy vs. Tiger Woods "Duel at Jinsha Lake" wasn't streaming, I never heard any of the banter.

Thankfully, Ryan Lavner did, and recounts all of it.

The most awkward revelations:

On the 10th hole, Woods admitted to “struggling with Sean (Foley),” his swing coach, saying, “I’ve been hitting my short irons so (expletive) far.” He went on to explain how he rarely took a divot with his short clubs under former coach Hank Haney, but now, though, “all of a sudden, I’m thinking divots.”

Whoa Nellie!

Woods said he lost eight pounds last week in Kuala Lumpur, and that the heat was so suffocating, “it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I had sweat dripping off my shirt when I was over the ball.” Apparently, he also lost his pin sheet on Saturday, which could help explain the third-round 69 that dropped him off the pace. (He eventually finished joint fourth.)

They couldn't get him a replacement pin sheet?

They talked scheduling. Woods noted that this was his first full season since 2005; that he likely will dial back his number of events next season; and that, post-British Open, U.S. players are plenty busy – maybe even too busy – with the FedEx Cup and all of the late-season jet-setting.

Problems, problems, problems!

Update on Monday, October 29, 2012 at 11:26 PM by Geoff

**The Golf Channel highlights.

Comments

[Goose]

Man, DTF, maybe you should go into consulting because clearly Nike needs your help as your description makes them out to be some sort of floundering, mismanaged company on the precipice of failure.

[DTF]

Goose, that's absurd,I've done nothing of the sort. Matter of fact, I'm one of the few people that's defended the quality of Nike's equipment.....most guys around here deride it as "inferior", among other things. Clearly as a company Nike has achieved growth, size, recognition, and success that few others can match -- but they didn't accomplish all that by handing out stupid deals -- and paying Rory $250,000,000 is a stupid deal.

[Pat Burke]

DTF
When Nike was chasing Phil, they had no equipment, only shoes and clothes,
so a different place and time. They were looking at Phil as a Nike "athlete"
not a Nike golf guy. I would imagine a lot of the budget for Rory would be company marketing, not just golf?

I am not a financial guy, nor do I play one on tv, so really don't know

[KLG]

Anyone else remember when Curtis Strange was the Nike golf athlete, in the swoosh shirt and shoes?

[johnnnycz]

KLG: Yup...Curtis was the original red shirt on Sundays Nike guy.

What makes me smile/cringe at the same time is watching the 86 Masters and seeing Seve wearing a Nike hat...he looked terrible in a hat but they must've sweetened the pot real good that week.

[Tighthead]

johnnycz - that is a weird visor - it looks like they stitched 2 small labels on top of each other.

I remember Curtis wearing the swoosh, and I think Peter Jacobsen did as well - it would make sense as a PDXer/Duck.

[DTF]

Good examples guys....and while I've never seen any dollar estimates published I suspect those golfers were being paid relatively modest sums.

PB, with Phil my suspicion is they had clubs in the pipeline and wanted him to be the standard bearer for their introduction.

There's one scenario where I might be able to make a case for paying Rory the $25 mil. I'm loath to mention this but remember the discussion we had about visors/hats and how much publicity they could generate for a sponsor? (in reference to Ted Tryba not wearing a hat) During that discussion I mentioned the company that tracks how much "in focus" TV time a players visor (or bag, etc) has during a network telecast....they sit there with a stopwatch and measure it down to the second. Even 15 years ago the numbers could really add up fast when someone like Freddie would dominate an event for an entire weekend.

Rory gets a ton of TV time, and any time an event puts up big banners/pictures of players Rory is one of them, and then there's all the other ancillary press coverage.

If in fact Nike is really considers paying him $250,000,000 this is the only way I can think of that they might be justifying it to themselves.

I still think it's a bad deal. The Nike brand is already so well known that plastering it all over Rory won't make any difference broadly, a least not in my opinion. So then we have to revert to the golf division specifically and I don't think enough extra sales will be generated to justify the gargantuan pay package.

Finally, why 10 years? Let's start with 5 years with an option for another 5.....