Tiger Woods recently had 2 awards named in his honor. Here’s why that makes sense

Many who watch the life and times of Tiger Woods will know that he has won 15 major championships and 82 PGA Tour events. But here are two more numbers in the air for the Tiger Woods Numerology Experience: 9 and 8, and that’s not a reference to Stephen Ames’ game-playing score. (But, while we’re at it: check out this golden oldie, from the Match Play Championship, 20 years ago.) Great reference here by eight times Woods won the Arnold Palmer Championship, too there are nine times won USGA national championships. That is, his three USGA minor titles, his three US Ams, and his three US Open championships in the holy trinity of public courses: Pebble Beach (2000), Bethpage Black (’02) and Torrey Pines (’09).

Do you know who has won the most USGA titles? There is no.

Also: Eight bogeys for Woods at Bay Hill? They arrived in 14 years, all full(ish) events. It’s surprising.

If Woods had done nothing else in the game, that big run alone would have put him in the pantheon.

Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge (its full name), where guys are playing this week dreaming of a $4 million winner’s payday, is a tribute to Arnold Palmer himself. Maybe one day Tiger will get a bridge on Bay Hill named after him or something. Currently, you can see his name eight times on the metal plaques underfoot on the club’s Champions Walk. In 2022, the R&A made Woods a member of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, giving him preferred times on the Old Course, among other privileges. He has an honorary lifetime membership at Augusta National, taking care of his first victory there, in 1997. (He has won four more Masters since then.) There is the Tiger Woods Villa at Trump Doral, where Woods has won seven times. But the biggest thing is the latest thing, straight out of Pinehurst, NC, and USGA HQ.

What the USGA did last week, at least when viewed from the prism of eternal, will be at the top of the other honors mentioned here: Golf’s most influential and culturally oriented organization (or at least along with the R&A), announced that from here on out the winner of the US Amateur will receive the Tiger Woods medal, and the winner of the USGA Woods boys’ title will receive the USGA Trophy. As for the saying out here, let’s boil it down to one word: forever.

But wait – there’s more.

A subtext that may not be obvious but is hidden in plain sight. If there were anywhere the question of who Tiger Woods was always I’ll go LIV, the USGA answered that question with this freebie naming rights issue. Wait here: The USGA, by political stance and statement of intent, will not be affiliated with LIV Golf or LIV Player in a meaningful way. Just two teams again. . . different. Along those same lines, no one with a LIV Golf organization is likely to receive the Bob Jones Award, the USGA’s most prestigious honor. At Seminole Golf Club’s annual member event, the USGA’s winter hangout if ever there was one, you’ll never see LIV players on the course. Same logic, really.

No one from the inside can say this out loud, but there really is a USGA-LIV Golf divide. That’s because LIV Golf is a for-profit business, and its business model revolves around selling golf that’s driven by the stars. The USGA is the golf equivalent of a major university, with a teaching research hospital in its backyard. The USGA’s prime value, if not more i core value, merit. Shoot for points (while playing by the rules), get rewards, no matter how you live. JJ Spaun’s win at last year’s US Open at Oakmont was out of character. When Spaun was a golfer at San Diego State in 2008, no one predicted he would win the Open. He got better at golf. That is, he improved himself. It takes your breath away, because the odds are so stacked against you.

The name Tiger’s life in golf is apt. The sponsor presenting the numbers released here (82, 15, 9, 8) is . . . Merit Inc. The PGA Tour is where Tiger was born and raised, as well. Worth, worth, worth. The story of Woods’ origins – raised by a black father who grew up under difficult conditions in segregated America and a mother from Thailand – cannot be overstated. What the USGA is saying here, by naming these big pieces of hardware for Tiger Woods, is that the doors to golf are open. everything. This branding business is a little expensive, but great.

The PGA Tour, in a desperate attempt to make sure it doesn’t lose too many stars to LIV Golf, has done a lot of things out of the LIV Golf playbook. Every model of the PGA Tour’s Signature events, including this week’s API, is on loan from LIV Golf. The creation of the PGA Tour’s for-profit division — PGA Tour Enterprises, with its private equity investors — is another path to LIV. (Woods is vice-chairman of E.) The field this week at Bay Hill consists of only 72 players – so LIV. (That number would leave Arnold Palmer sick.) There is a 36-hole cut for the top 50 and a tie, with any player within 10 shots of the lead. That little bookkeeping is a nod to Arnold’s belief in the sanctity of the cut as a fundamental part of championship golf, and that’s all it is.

And let’s not get all high and mighty about the USGA’s role in the game. In negotiating TV rights and selecting venues for the US Opens, the USGA could take its cue from the Gordon Gekko (“greed is good”) playbook.

But we are here today to put the trophy on top. These new USGA awards, the Tiger Woods Trophy and the Tiger Woods Medal, speak volumes. That every player managed by Mark Steinberg, Tiger’s longtime agent, is not LIV Golfer, the same – it means. And this is what is said. In theory and in practice, anyone can grow to win a USGA championship. When you get down to it, that’s all. Arnold did it. (He was 24 when he won the US Amateur.) Spaun did. Bob Jones (nine USGA titles) did it. Ben Hogan did it. And so did, most surprisingly, Tiger. The Tiger Woods Trophy. Tiger Woods Award. How appropriate.