How was the biggest name in world golf persuaded to play in a tournament Down Under? WARREN GAMBLE puts together the pieces of the puzzle.
Allan James, a big man with a butcher's cheerfulness, is under instructions to help a certain American win the New Zealand Open.
Tiger Woods is his wardrobe consultant.
It happened like this. Two years ago James saw first-hand Woods' freakish ability when he won the US Open by 15 strokes - a victory comparable to the All Blacks winning a World Cup final by 50 points.
James was in the swarming spectator gallery following Woods and his caddie, the former Kapiti Coast boy who had carried his bags, Steve Williams.
James wore dark, chequered trousers, a detail only memorable because this week Woods asked him to wear the same pair at the New Zealand Open on the Paraparaumu Beach course.
"I had a good week last time," he joked with James as they strode the fairways together during the pro-am preliminary round.
"Make sure you wear them again. I'll be looking."
In that small chequered history lies part of an unlikely web of connections which brought off probably New Zealand's biggest sporting coup.
It survived scepticism from sponsors, laughter from Australian tour officials, disbelief from friends of the four Wellington men, including James, who launched what they admit was an outrageous idea.
It saw off a financial crisis at the 11th hour thanks to the intervention of Wellington investors and Auckland bankers.
And it also overcame the corporate after-shocks of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
When Woods launched his first Open tee shot down the middle of the fairway on Thursday, the rugged green of Kapiti Island in the background, the rolling green of the course before him, the Wellington four, the investors and the bankers, let out a long-held breath.
"We were behind him as he hit it, and it was very, very, very satisfying," says one of the four, Owen Williams.
The answer to how the world's greatest player came to play in a tournament with the pulling power of an electric golf cart is a fittingly New Zealand one: part who you know, part what you know, part sheer hard work.
T HE connections which snared Tiger start back in the 1970s when Allan James, a Paraparaumu Beach club stalwart, took on 12-year-old Steve Williams as his caddie.
He also took on Williams in his local butchery, sometimes picking up the teenager from the train he was supposed to go to school in.
Instead Williams headed to the shop where he kept a spare set of clothes and went about saving the money he needed to further his career overseas.
Williams says it's only in recent years that his mother forgave him from skiving off school.
After every tournament that Williams' employers, including greats Raymond Floyd, Greg Norman and Woods have won since, the caddie has telephoned his old boss.
During a rain delay at an American PGA tournament Woods rang James from the course, saying he understood the butcher hooked the ball real bad.
"Nobody believed me when I told them Tiger had called," says James.
The 48-year-old, with 37 years as a member of the Paraparaumu club, continued the easy mateship with Williams and Woods at that US Open in June 2000.
A few days after he returned home he got a call from his home club's resident professional, Allan McKay.
He had watched Woods take apart the field at Pebble Beach, and saw a connection through James and Williams to get the "Man" Down Under.
James went to the meeting expecting to be told that his young golfing son David was in more trouble at the club.
Told the Big Idea, he was initially disbelieving, but agreed to ring Williams.
The caddie, who has forged a close off-course friendship with Woods, came back to say Tiger was "a good chance" for January 2002.
The ball was in motion.
Around the same time, Wellington golf manager Owen Williams was playing at the Paraparaumu club when he mentioned to McKay an idea to get a European golf tour event sanctioned for New Zealand.
He had talked about it with a colleague, John Freer, a Hillary Commission manager and former marketing man and journalist. One suggestion they had was to resurrect the defunct New Zealand Professional Golf Association tournament.
The four met in the Paraparaumu clubhouse overlooking the 18th green in late June, 2000. James says that when he and McKay revealed Woods' interest, the others "nearly fell off their chairs".
Woods' preference for playing in national championships which were open to amateurs fixed their sights on the New Zealand Open.
Their new partnership, given a catchy company name of Plus Fore, began the hard yards to find the missing ingredient needed to make most big ideas work - big money.
"We always knew it was never going to be an easy task," says Freer. "We never anticipated it would be as difficult as it was."
For a start there was the not inconsiderable matter of Woods' appearance fee, set by his agents, sports management powerhouse IMG at $NZ5 million.
The foursome also wanted to double the tournament prizemoney to $1 million, and needed sponsors for a golf event on a scale never attempted in New Zealand, understood to be another $4 million plus.
Among the sceptics was the Australasian PGA which runs the tour. They learned later that after one meeting Australian tour officials laughed and gave them only a 10 per cent chance of getting Woods.
The existing Open sponsors, Lion Breweries and Telstra Saturn, were also dubious at first. After his first meeting with the four, Lion corporate affairs director Graeme Seatter told the National Business Review he left thinking "they had a pipe dream which wouldn't come together".
Owen Williams says Telstra's former chief executive Jack Matthews, who played in Wednesday's pro-am with Woods, told him he was "arrogant and very naive" after pitching their proposal. Matthews was later won over and increased the value of his company's sponsorship.
In February last year the four flew to the US, James and McKay meeting Woods, Freer and Williams heading to Cleveland to meet Woods' IMG agent, Mark Steinberg.
The four returned to New Zealand with the knowledge that if they could get the money, the biggest name in golf would arrive.
But despite encouraging noises, sponsors would not sign up and time was running out. They got two extensions from Steinberg to seal the deal, but as McKay bluntly puts it: "We did not cut the mustard. We had the golf experience, but we did not have the financial experience.
"It's all very well having the idea, but having the process in place to make it work was a far, far harder job."
I N HIS central Auckland offices, investment banker David Pool - the man who would later clinch the Woods deal - had similar views.
"I saw four guys who had a good idea, but to pull off an event of this magnitude you need to have more than just an idea."
Pool is part of FR Partners, an investment group which was originally part-owned by Fay Richwhite founders Sir Michael Fay and David Richwhite. The two men were bought out by FR managing director Bill Birnie and associates in 2000.
The company's hard-ball resume includes a successful raid with Sir Ron Brierley's Guinness Peat Group on freshly corporatised pipfruit exporter Enza in July, 2000.
At the construction site shed headquarters of the tournament this week, next to the 10th fairway where Woods teed off, Pool is cagey about how he got involved - to protect the identity of investors who want to stay anonymous.
As the Plus Fore group were desperately trying to find the money, one of them contacted a Wellington businessman who rang another, who rang another, who suggested FR Partners.
Bill Birnie had lived in Wellington for 15 years and was one of the founding trustees of the new Wellington stadium. Pool worked on the stadium's business plan and funding.
In April last year, Pool met Owen Williams in Wellington. Over the next six weeks he worked to put the financial and organisational pieces in place.
Pool says he has played golf, poorly, but the real golfer in his family is his grandfather, Don, who still goes to the driving range although he is in his 90s.
"I went into it because I thought the opportunity to bring the world number one sportsman to New Zealand in his prime, if it could be pulled off, was something that should happen."
An anonymous group of Wellington investors came to the party. As well as the high-risk prospect of a return, Pool says "they all felt it would be great for the region, and the country".
A new company was formed, Open 2002 Ltd, and Pool, at the investors' request, became its full-time managing director.
Financial details are guarded, but Pool says the overall budget is more than $10 million. Reports, not confirmed by the company, suggested FR Partners underwrote the event by between $2.5 million and $7.5 million.
As part of the deal the company required controlling rights to the Open from the NZ Golf Association and IMG Australia and New Zealand, while retaining their services to run the event.
It went down to the wire in May last year. Steinberg's final deadline for the signing of the contract and the money being sent could not be met as Pool sought to finalise other details.
At the same time Woods was being courted for an exhibition event in the Middle East.
In the end it was left to Woods to decide, and his desire to play at his caddie's course carried the day. Two days later the contract was signed.
Pool says that was only the start of organising an event which he did not realise the magnitude of.
Ticket sales began in early September amid controversy from New Zealand golfers Michael Campbell and Greg Turner at the high price - $175 a day at the weekend.
But that was superseded a week later by the September 11 terrorist attack in the US.
The economic aftershocks led to golf tournament cancellations, Woods' withdrawal from a European event, and speculation he would not come here.
Two second-tier sponsors pulled out as the economic climate worsened, and others who had expressed interest went cold.
Whether his company or the investors will get a return depends on the weather holding fine, and crowds of 20,000 plus turning out today and tomorrow. The first day saw a solid 10,700 attendance.
James says he has to pinch himself every day. "You've got the best player ever walking down our fairways and Steve, who used to caddie for me, is there too."
He has not brought out the lucky trousers yet, but promises Woods he will at the weekend: "I wanted to make a contest of it first."
Two playoff holes were needed to decide the event, with Alker settling for second.