{"id":98891,"date":"2022-02-21T16:28:55","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T22:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=98891"},"modified":"2022-02-21T16:28:55","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T22:28:55","slug":"genesis-invitational-participants-reflect-on-immeasurable-impact-of-tiger-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/genesis-invitational-participants-reflect-on-immeasurable-impact-of-tiger-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"Genesis Invitational participants reflect on immeasurable impact of Tiger Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Jack Savage<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Medill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">LOS ANGELES \u2014<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the pro-ams rolled on during the early portion of the week at the Genesis Invitational, there was a palpable buzz in the air that felt different. That difference being Tiger Woods. Participants spoke about what it meant to see Woods here, at \u201chis course,\u201d as the host of the event.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cBeing here, being in a tournament hosted by Tiger makes it really special,\u201d said Joaqu\u00edn Niemann, the winner of this year\u2019s tournament.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 23-year-old Niemann became the youngest winner in the event\u2019s 96-year history, leading the tournament wire-to-wire. He spoke on what it meant having Woods hand him the trophy on 18.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt was awesome having Tiger there,\u201d Niemann said. \u201cI haven&#8217;t seen him since probably a year. Everybody knew what happened here one year ago, which was pretty sad. Being able to see him doing as well as he&#8217;s doing is awesome.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Almost a full year has gone by since Woods was in a car accident, and yet there he was throughout the whole week, fulfilling his responsibilities and obligations as host.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt talks pretty well how good he is in any aspect of golf and life. He&#8217;s awesome, he&#8217;s one of my idols. I always watched him on TV and I still do,\u201d Niemann said. \u201cHaving Tiger on site receiving the trophy is something special.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Congratulations to the 2022 tournament champion, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joaconiemann?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@joaconiemann<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/l4txggOSq1\">pic.twitter.com\/l4txggOSq1<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; The Genesis Invitational (@thegenesisinv) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thegenesisinv\/status\/1495562081440989189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aaron Beverly, the tournament\u2019s Charlie Sifford Memorial exemption recipient, sat next to Woods as they spoke to the media, and it was clear in the way Beverly spoke about him that he has the utmost respect for Woods.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cTo be sitting here next to Mr. Woods, and to be honest with everybody, he&#8217;s really cool,\u201d Beverly said. \u201cI had dreams of one day playing against him and competing against him, and hopefully on the 72nd hole, I&#8217;m making the putt and I&#8217;m fist pumping.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cMy dreams never got so far to be sitting and doing a press conference with him, but it&#8217;s definitely a moment in time I&#8217;ll never forget and very special.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woods made his first PGA Tour start back in 1992 on this course, at Riviera Country Club, as a 16-year-old kid, and all these years later is now the host of the whole thing. It\u2019s a full-circle moment. The course itself is known as being a favorite among those on the tour and especially now with Woods\u2019 face and foundation attached to it, this event holds even more weight.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI love Riviera,\u201d said Jordan Spieth, three-time major winner. \u201cI think it&#8217;s arguably in the conversation as the best golf course in the world. It&#8217;s more so that than anything else really, but obviously the fact that it&#8217;s an invitational and Tiger&#8217;s taken it over and all that added stuff, too, I would have said that before it became a TGR Foundation event.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone knows how special Riviera is to Woods, no more than fellow Southern California native, and last year\u2019s tournament winner, Max Homa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt&#8217;s been cool,\u201d Homa said. \u201cJust, you know, having Tiger&#8217;s name attached to our home tournament is really awesome, obviously this event means a lot to us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though he isn\u2019t playing, the impact Woods has on the tournament is enormous, the golfers said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cNow that Tiger is involved, I just feel like &#8212; it was already going to be a big deal for everybody, but you add that name to it and like it blows up extremely,\u201d Homa said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While Woods spoke about his future and informed the world he will no longer be playing full time, the participants of this year\u2019s Genesis Invitational were just happy to have him back around the guys.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt\u2019s great seeing him here,\u201d said Justin Thomas, currently the eighth ranked golfer in the world. \u201cI know he loves it, catching up with all of us and all the other guys. Anytime you get to have him around, especially with all he\u2019s been through the last year, it\u2019s definitely great for everybody.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">From Spieth to Niemann, it was hard finding anyone who didn\u2019t reference how great it was to have Woods back throughout the week. That speaks to Woods&#8217; impact on the game and everyone involved: Whether that be as a 15-time major champion, or simply an event\u2019s host, his impact is immeasurable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Jack Savage is a sports reporter at Medill. You can follow him on Twitter at\u00a0<\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JackkSavage\">@jackksavage.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jack Savage Medill Reports LOS ANGELES \u2014 When the pro-ams rolled on during the early portion of the week at the Genesis Invitational, there was a palpable buzz in the air that felt different. That difference being Tiger Woods. Participants spoke about what it meant to see Woods here, at \u201chis course,\u201d as the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":804,"featured_media":98949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5201,31,5212,5155],"tags":[5221,5219,5222,5224,4051,5223,5225,5220,4709],"class_list":["post-98891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medill-explores-2022","category-sports","category-la-sports-2022","category-winter-2022","tag-aaron-beverly","tag-joaquin-niemann","tag-jordan-spieth","tag-justin-thomas","tag-los-angeles","tag-max-homa","tag-riviera-country-club","tag-the-genesis-invitational","tag-tiger-woods"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Genesis Invitational participants reflect on immeasurable impact of Tiger Woods - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The top golfers from around the world participated in the Genesis Invitational this past weekend, while welcoming back an old friend, Tiger Woods.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/genesis-invitational-participants-reflect-on-immeasurable-impact-of-tiger-woods\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Genesis Invitational participants reflect on immeasurable impact of Tiger Woods - 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