Golf: Keeping Tiger burning bright

Tiger Woods has a formidable support team that makes sure he can stay in the "zone" and win. EUGENE BINGHAM examines what makes Tiger Inc tick.

Everybody, but everybody, wanted a piece of Tiger Woods this week - even the world's best golfers.

They lined up to learn a thing or two from the Generation X genius as he zeroed in on his fourth successive major title at Augusta.

Out on the practice range midway through the Masters, reporters spotted former Open and Masters champion Nick Faldo crouched behind Woods with a video camera. He was there, he said, to pick up tips about the 25-year-old maestro's swing.

Had he bothered to ask Woods' permission before he turned on the camera?

"Heavens no," said Faldo. "He wouldn't have even noticed I was there. He was in the zone."

Ah, that infamous zone.

Long before Woods slipped on the green jacket for his second Masters title in the United States on Monday, his mind game was held in as much awe as his long game.

Woods' zone - the place in his mind where he is able to maintain absolute concentration no matter the distractions around him - has become the stuff of sporting legends.

But behind every Woods trip to the zone, every victory, is a formidable organisation that ensures all he has to think about is winning.

Right at the centre of Tiger Inc is our own Steve Williams, the Aucklander who has been a professional caddy for most of his working life and has been linked to the sport's biggest name since 1999.

He is one of four people who travel with Woods to every tournament - himself, a manager, a coach and a representative of Nike, with whom Woods has a five-year $US100 million ($236 million) sponsorship deal.

"It's not a big entourage," Williams told Holmes this week.

Of all of them, it is Williams who gets closest to Woods during his zone-time. They stride the great courses of the world together, Williams the trusted on-course handler and adviser.

He says Woods' ability is as much mental as physical.



"He is a good player, but his mind is so much stronger than everybody else's. His determination, will-power, he works hard at it. But just his mind, he will never ever give in. He just wants to win so badly. He has a strong mind to handle the pressure."

It is Williams' job to scope each course before Woods plays a round and to advise him on how to play each shot and with which club.

Months before they even pull up at the course, others have been doing scouting work of their own, making travel arrangements, cutting sponsorship deals and negotiating appearance fees.

Chief among the negotiators is Mark Steinberg, Woods' agent from International Management Group (IMG), the Cleveland-based company that represents a galaxy of the world's sporting stars (including New Zealand golfers Sir Bob Charles, Frank Nobilo and Grant Waite).

Together with IMG's golfing division, Steinberg helps plan Woods' golfing itinerary, charity appearances, and runs the business side of Tiger Inc. Right now they are working on a video game, signing Woods as a spokesman for Disney, and figuring out how to use the internet most effectively.

Steinberg took over as Woods' agent three years ago after splitting from the man who had been his manager for eight years, Hughes Norton, another IMG representative.

Norton had knocked on the 15-year-old Woods' door and signed him up with the blessing of his parents, Earl and Kultida.

It was a lucrative partnership. Norton steered Woods through his formative years on the amateur circuit and helped him turn professional in 1996, securing endorsement deals worth millions of dollars along the way.

Norton was obviously a skilled money-maker who laid many lucrative foundations for Woods. But after two years on the pro tour, Woods decided he wanted someone else.

The split from Norton gave an insight into Woods' perception about the game: that he sees it as a calling rather than a career.

"The decision came down to a fundamental difference," Earl Woods told Sports Illustrated. "For Hughes, the dollar is all mighty. For Tiger, money is not that important. And Hughes underestimated Tiger's personal growth and his grasp of his own business dealings."

Not that Woods has to worry about his bank balance. Last year he earned $US53 million from endorsements alone. His advertising worth keeps sky-rocketing. With the Masters victory came talk that he could become the first sportsman to earn $US1 billion. He has been compared to basketballer Michael Jordan - not just because both are rightly considered among the best sportsmen to ever walk this Earth - but because of their earning power. (In his best year, Jordan pocketed $US45 million in endorsements.)

Woods' pulling power means he can command virtually what he likes in appearance fees. Just ask the Wellington consortium trying to lure him to New Zealand for next year's PGA Championship planned for Paraparaumu. They were initially told the going rate would be around $US2 million. Who knows if that price went up after Monday's history-making round at Augusta.

The managing director of IMG New Zealand, Paul Gleeson, has been busy negotiating with the consortium but he is coy.

"They are making their best efforts" is about the closest he gets to a hint.

Gleeson says IMG's role in negotiations is to talk to the company or consortium, cut the best deal and present it to the client.

"We sit down and talk about the dates, look at availability, talk about likely fees and costs and other things and then take it back. If they say no, it stops right there.

"In many ways what IMG does is no different to what it was doing for clients 30 years ago. We protect them from all sorts of things, make a number of decisions for them, take deals to the client, to say, 'Here is a financial arrangement we recommend'."

People in the golfing division also work out the logistics of getting Woods around the world from his home in Florida to the tournaments and appearances he has settled on (when you have a private jet, as Tiger does, this is a lot easier).

Of course, the majors take precedence: the Masters, the US Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship - the trophies of which all sit on Woods' coffee table.

Jotted around these events in his diary any year are other important tournaments, such as the Dunhill Cup and the World Match Play Championship. He limits himself to 20 tournaments a year in America, though he makes other appearances such as at the Dubai Desert Classic in March.

In one two-month stretch last year, he criss-crossed four continents and played in eight tournaments.

On top of that schedule, Woods is notorious for his punishing training regime, spending hours a day practising his shots and working on his fitness.

In the afterglow of his Masters victory, he revealed at a press conference the lengths he had gone to in pursuit of the title.

Talking about his 275m tee shot at the 13th, he said: "It's a shot I've been practising for the last couple of months, knowing that I was probably going to need that shot either at 13 or 14.

"I've been practising using the loft, making sure I have it right. I practised on the range all week just in case I might need it."

Woods also revealed the relief victory brought, admitting he broke down after his last putt.

"I was in such a zone today, working so hard on every shot. Then when I walked over to the side and I just started thinking, you know, I don't have any more shots to play, I'm done. I won the Masters."

How much further can this man-machine push himself? Not even his own sports psychologist, Jay Brunza, has worried about that question yet.

"He's not going to burn out because he plays for his own joy and passion."