Tiger Woods to entertain overseas scheduling options, endorsements

ByBOB HARIG
December 2, 2016, 3:11 PM

— -- NASSAU, Bahamas -- Just seeing Tiger Woods on the course for the first time in 15 months had the golf world captivated, leading to TV ratings and plenty of social media buzz.

It also had agent Mark Steinberg constantly distracted by his phone.

"My phone was pretty heated this week leading up to the first round,'' Steinberg said Friday at Albany Golf Club, where the second round of the Hero World Challenge was underway. "But it went from heated to hot.

"The whole world was anxious to see if he was going to withdraw or play. Then they see he looks fit, he is playing golf again. There were a lot of positives.''

And that means potential endorsement deals are more likely, as well as overtures from various tournaments around the world.

Woods has yet to say where he will make his 2017 debut, and Steinberg said no decisions have been made. But Woods will have plenty of choices, including lucrative ones that come with appearance fees on the European Tour.

"I've been in conversations with a couple of overseas tournaments early in the year,'' said Steinberg, who declined to name them. "And there's been some talk about the middle of the year and the end of the year.

"Tiger and I have not talked about his schedule yet. We wanted to get through this week and see how everything went. We will do that in the next week or so and look at the schedule.''

Although nothing is definitive, likely scenarios include the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in late January, and the Genesis Open at Riviera and the Honda Classic -- near Woods' home in Florida -- both in February.

Torrey Pines is where Woods has had some of his greatest success, and it's often been a starting point for him in a new year. The tournament at Riviera is now run by the Tiger Woods Foundation, all but guaranteeing his appearance at the Los Angeles event for the first time since 2006. It is the tournament Woods has played the most without a victory, having gone 0-for-9, with eight of those events played at Riviera.

Adding an overseas event makes things a bit trickier. Woods has played the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Classic and the Omega Desert Classic in the past, and those tournaments bookend the Farmers Insurance Open. Playing Abu Dhabi would mean a 12-time-zone change to San Diego for the next event. The Dubai tournament is two weeks after Abu Dhabi and would allow for a week off following San Diego; it would also give him a week off before Riviera.

Whether Woods can physically handle playing consecutive tournament weeks will also influence the decisions.

"Getting through this is step one,'' Steinberg said. "As Tiger has said, all of this is a process. We've not yet discussed playing two or three in a row.''

Regardless of what Woods chooses to do, it is unlikely he will be eligible for the WGC-Mexico Championship or the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship, meaning he might play in some events he normally does not play. Woods is likely to play the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which he has won eight times.

He could add the Valspar Championship, played the week prior, or the Shell Houston Open -- although that is the week before the Masters, and Woods has never played a tournament the week before the year's first major championship.

As for equipment, Steinberg said "there is a possibility'' that more than one sponsorship deal will be announced in the next few weeks. Woods, who has been a Nike endorser since turning professional in 1996, is free to sign new club deals because Nike announced in August that it will no longer make golf clubs and balls.

Nothing has been decided, but this week Woods has played with a Bridgestone golf ball -- a ball deal is the first one likely to be announced -- as well as TaylorMade woods. He has had a set of Nike irons in the bag.

"It's an exhausting process testing all this equipment,'' Woods said earlier this week. "There are so many choices with each company, so many difference shafts, heads. So it takes some time.''

The Hero World Challenge announced that the first-round ratings on Golf Channel were the highest in the 18-year history of the event.