LOS ANGELES — Has there ever been an influencer like Tiger Woods?

Yes, that’s a rhetorical question. Because, no, of course not.

How could you even begin to quantify how many golfers are golfers because of him? How would you truly measure his impact? Gigantic seems too little.

But there’s influence and then there’s infrastructure — tangible opportunities availed, via his TGR Foundation, to Southern California kids who wouldn’t otherwise have had them.

Those Learning Lab programs that serve under-resourced communities, offering a host of STEM courses and, if youngsters are interested, golf lessons too. That’s why you could line up a direct putt on Thursday between Woods and Ariana Perez, both of them standard-bearers in their own way at the Genesis Invitational, the tournament for which Woods is host — and his foundation the beneficiary.

Woods, of course, will go down in history as the leader of a movement that changed a whole sport. Perez? She was a literal standard bearer. The 18-year-old from Placentia was the one toting the scores and walking alongside the trio of Ludvig Aberg (4-under-par 68), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (69) and Nick Hardy (76), who teed off behind Woods and spent the day playing into his substantial wake.

Woods was not the on-paper favorite entering the tournament, which this year is one of the eight PGA TOUR Signature Events as well as his first full-field event since the 2023 Masters. But he absolutely was the favorite on the Riviera Country Club grounds.

Thursday was an opportunity for the hundreds-strong swarm following along to see Woods zipper together a round, feast or famine, “a lot of good and a lot of indifferent, one or the other,” he called his five birdies and six bogeys adding up to a 1-over-par 72 – treading water while some of this generation’s stars rocketed to the top of the leaderboard.

Former UCLA star Patrick Cantlay shot 64 for the lead; and Cam Davis, Luke List and Jason Day all fired 65s.

But the leaders aren’t the headliners with Woods in the field. His presence is a gravitational pull, an opportunity for fans to witness the familiar gait, the familiar approach over each putt, the familiar application of chapstick mid-round.

...continued

©2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit ocregister.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.