Investigating the Celebrity (“Tiger Effect”) and Other Impacts for Golf Participation in USA

This paper investigated whether the impact of Tiger’s success led to the increase in golf participation
during his first decade (1996-2005) or was there some other, better, explanatory factor. Alternate
explanations explored are the growth in real household income (income adjusted for inflation) and the
return on the S&P 500 for the same time period. The golf industry faces many challenges. Decreasing
golf participation and a reduction in the number of courses preceded the Great Recession of 2008-
2009, but were certainly exacerbated by it. The golfing establishment saw Tiger Woods as a
disruption to business-as-usual, and believed his turning professional in 1996 would have a positive
ripple effect on golf participation and the industry as a whole – the so-called “Tiger Effect.” Golf course
stakeholders bought into the hype of the early Tiger Woods era and believed that the increased TV
viewership and Tiger-related discussion would translate into an increase in participation and
profitability. That sustained participation never materialized and the supply of golf courses easily
outstripped the demand. Using data from multiple sources, the authors investigated the impact of
Tiger’s off-course earnings (a form of a celebrity influence, we term as the “Tiger Effect”), on
participation. Specifically, the components of total U.S. golfers (defined as the sum of core and
occasional players) were used as the dependent variables in our analysis. Using regression, the
impacts of Tiger’s off-course earnings, real U.S. household income and the return on the S&P 500
were used as explanatory variables for the three participation groups. The results indicate that on the
surface, a Tiger Effect seemed to exist in the late 1990s, but in actuality, the increasing economy was
a key factor in the increase in participation. Golf is still faced with many of the same problems such as
declining participation (2015 showed another year-to-year decline) and the closing of golf courses
(2015 showed a net loss of 172 courses). The challenges are many, and relying on Tiger is no longer
an option, and probably never was.