After eight months away from the game he dominated for more than a decade, Tiger Woods teed it up at Bluejack National Golf Club near Houston on Monday and made par on the first hole he played. Woods and fellow Masters and British Open champ Mark O’Meara played five holes on the Woods-designed course on its official opening day.
A week ago ESPN and the Golf Channel reported that Woods had been practicing for several hours a day for the first time since two back surgeries in September and October of last year. Long-time sponsor Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) has got to like what it hears, and so must the PGA Tour.
His return to competitive golf can’t come soon enough for the PGA tour. Nike and Rolex, another brand endorsed by Woods, are just as eager to see him back in form. The Wyndham Championship last August was Woods’s final tournament of the year. He entered the final round just two strokes off the lead. The tournament sponsors sold 49,000 more extra tickets for the weekend, most of which were attributed to Woods. He ended up tied for 10th after taking an 11 on a par-four hole.
According to a report at ESPN, after playing those five holes on Monday, Woods said:
I’m definitely a little tired but I feel pretty good. I haven’t been out here playing like this. I hadn’t played any holes until today. I know people have said I’ve played holes back at Medalist, but I haven’t. This is actually the first time I’ve played holes since Wyndham. It’s been awhile. You saw how I was going at it today, nice and smooth. That’s harder than I have been going at it the last month. Just gradually progressing.
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Woods, who has won the Masters tournament four times, pulled out of this year’s contest just a few days before the tournament was scheduled to start. He has registered to play the U.S. Open in June, held this year at the Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh. In the one U.S. Open played at Oakmont since Woods joined the PGA Tour, he finished in a tie for second with Jim Furyk, behind winner Angel Cabrera.
His first deal with Nike was signed in 1996 for five years for a reported total of $40 million. Although there’s been no official word on what Nike pays Woods, the deal has been reported to be worth about $20 million a year to the golfer since 2001. Nike’s most recent contract extension with Woods was signed in 2013. As of the end of 2014, according to a report at Forbes, Nike had built a golf empire worth almost $800 million in annual sales on Woods’s back.
Nike’s stock price is up about 0.4% late Tuesday morning, at $59.43 in a 52-week range of $47.25 to $68.19.
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