by mikeR
The stuff folks like you type are not interesting from my perspective. Either I'm must be living on another planet, or, maybe your trying to score points being politically correct! The tone of this rhetoric resembles one of the boring "diversity" training sessions at in the workplace. Your the type of guy that encourages women to play high school football! Women's golf is like watching the WNBA (no disrespect intended)not an attention grabber! And Im a huge Annika fan! Please, Wie is talented, but who cares about potential in pro level competitive sports? Playing with the big dogs means you take the heat, 16 years or 30 years, "stop the excuse train," its not very flattering! At this point, she (Wie)can't carry Annika's bag, or any of the other new young guns on the womens tour. How you have the nerve to compare a few runner up's with missed cuts on the PGA tour (weak fields) is absolutely ridiculous!

by Hoyt Decker
mikeR:
It's quite probable that you're not a total idiot ....... but your comment here is not helping that argument. You've completely misinterpreted most of what Nessmith was saying. You've answered oranges by screaming that the apples are rotten. Knucklehead!

by Jim Koppenhaver
Your article on the post-mortem of the "Tiger effect" was on the money. As the President and Founder of a golf information company that tracks this stuff for a living, Tiger Woods has attracted fans to the game of golf and raised its awareness as a sport at the competitive level.
What the industry failed to realize is that the PGA Tour is in the "entertainment" business while the golf industry is in the "recreation" business. We all admire watching a talented athlete bomb a drive 350+ yards and split a fairway but our odds of doing that even once in a lifetime are slim (if not nil). Likewise, Michelle Wie will raise awareness and interest in golf both from the female (to emulate) and the male side (just to watch her) but it's quite dubious that she'll impact the business side of golf any more than Tiger has to date.

by Gary Wiren
Excellent presentation by Mark Nessmith on the "Tiger effect." The piece was factual and articulate without being cynical or misrepresenting the case. Good reporting.

by john klein, PGA
Michelle has gone about her "success" in the wrong way. She pushed herself onto the men's tour. She should have started on the women's tour and proved herself, played in amateur events, and waited til she was 18 to turn pro. As far as I am concerned, she did it for the money and not for the love of the game! I coach a girl's golf team with many newcomers to the game and they don't even know who Michelle Wie is!

by Chuck Collet
Mr. Seltman; Hold on there fella, we're conserned your going to have a heart attack. I hope you don't take all that negativity to the course with you. If you do I'd guess your a club thrower. You seem to have the term "hard working, incredibly focused, great role model, and "WINNER", mixed up with some kind of "Hero" to worship. As for "television", you don't seem to have a grasp of the evolution of wealth. Television relies on revenue totally from advertisers. Without them we would have only two channels, PBS, and the government propaganda channel. Advertiser's on the other hand recognize that the more popular a sports figure is the more people will watch and the more that is worth to them in advertising dollars. So don't think Television made golf because it didn't. It a mutual admiration $$$ society where they all (golf, golfers television, and the advertisers and sponsors) all make the big bucks. That by the way is called FREE ENTERPRISE..Without those two words we might as well be living in some third world communist country with few if any freedoms. Some people just seem to hate a REAL WINNER. Golf I would suggest, is still trying to get it's act together. Take a deep breath and relax, and here's hoping your next round is a great one..

by FRED SELTMAN
NO--NO--NO
I DO NOT THROW CLUBS.
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH--I TEACH GOLF AND I AM A CLUB MAKER FOR MORE THAN 15 YEARS.
SO YOU HAVE THE WRONG PICTURE OF ME.
BUT I SEE NO POINT IN PUSHING THIS ANY FUTHER. YOU ARE MOST LIKELY A NICE GUY
SO LETS LET IT LIE.
WOODS STILL SUCKS.

by Chuck Collet
Mr.Nessmith;- I find myself at a bit of a loss realizing I "agree" with your editorial on the "Tiger Effect". However, I think you have simplified it to a point where it has become "pointlesss".. It is obvious to anyone who watches or is involved in the golf industry, that interest, on the "male side" of golf has waned over the last couple of years. Where I part ways with you is on the responsibility for that drop. I believe that even now the industry benefits greatly from Mr. Wood's mere existence. If he were to leave the game I think the industry would flounder like a duck in a oil spill. I know that myself and many of my golfing friends have gotten to the place where we don't even bother to watch most tournaments where golf's "great one" doesn't appear. Other tournaments have become "laclustre" without the extra fire not just he but his top rivals together bring to the game. I have worked in the golf industry and would be bold enough to suggest it has become a self destructive attempt at a "money grab" by many wonderful new golf courses that has hurt the industry by scaring off "would be clientele" with green fees that could only be justified in the average golfer's mind for a short time. "Okay",so I played it once, now where can I go next week without taking a big bite out of my mortgage payment, or my kids or grandkids college fund. Compond that with the peer pressure to never be seen without the latest "game improvement clubs in one's bag, regardless of the cost, has kept many a golf bag put away in the back of the garage, waiting for a break... Course owners and operators are going to have to wake up and smell the coffee. An empty golf course can lead to a spiral that sees jobs cut to the management and course maintenance staff which then leads to course deterioration, leading to less busines, leading to more cuts, and on and on.. To suggest to any "high class" golf club that volume may be the only way to stay afloat, in what is quickly becoming a buyers' market, would be considered heresy in it's worst form. So, anyone holding a job at a high priced facility had better start looking for a career change or a move downward in income bracket. I will suggest that any industry which is as vain as to be willing to commit financial suicide to "not lose face", deserves what it gets. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE GUYS AND GALS!!!, or we may see you on the welfare lines.
One more small point Mr. Nessmith. Your second point involving Michelle Wie I agree with completely. What a refreshing breeze for ladies golf. BUT, (golf industry listen closely), The girls might spend money on clothes and accesories, but they have a much better grasp of the value of their "golf dollars" that most men, so you won't find them on your course if you try to wring the last penny you can out of them for green fees, leading to an embargo on the golf shop, leading to more lost revenue, and on and on and on. There seems to be a familiar theme happening here..
No, I don't have the answer but somebody better come up with one soon or golf will fall back into it's elitist past and be hoist on it's own petard,, SOMEBODY... HEEEELP!!!!

by FRED SELTMAN
WOODS----WIE----WHOEVER----
GOLF DID OK BEFORE THEM AND WILL DO OK WITHOUT THEM. DID YOU FORGET?? WE ARE ALL EXPENDABLE AND LIFE GOES ON.
ANROLD P. AND JACK N. ALONG WITH OTHERS DID QUITE ALOT FOR GOLF AND NOW THEY HAVE RETIRED. GEEEE, GOLF IS STILL HERE.
GET OVER THE HERO WORSHIP--MOST OF WHICH IS CREATED BY THE MEDIA AND JERKS LIKE NIKE AND THE LIKE.
WHAT REALLY MADE GOLF TAKE OFF WAS TELEVISION. MANY SPORTS BENEFITED FROM TELEVISION. SO IF YOU WANT TO BOW TO SOMEONE BOW TO THE CREATORS OF TELEVISION.
ON A PERSONAL NOTE---MY FEELING IS WOODS IS A SOUR PUSS. ONLY SMILES WHEN HE WINS. LIKE--HE SHOULD WIN ALL THE TIME. LOOK AT A.P. AND J.N.--GENTLEMEN TO THE END WIN OR LOSE. WOODS SUCKS.