Tiger Woods voted AP Male Athlete of the Year
By RON SIRAK AP Golf Writer
Although Tiger Woods has a long way to go to break all the
records set by Jack Nicklaus, he already has one honor never achieved
by Nicklaus, or Arnold Palmer - Associated Press Male Athlete
of the Year.
Woods, whose record-setting victory in the Masters in April
pushed golf from the sports pages to the front pages and triggered
a financial explosion in the game, easily won over Detroit Lions
running back Barry Sanders in balloting by AP print and broadcast
members.
"I thought I had a good year but I never expected this,"
Woods said about the voting announced Tuesday, his 22nd birthday.
He won the Masters, took four other tournaments and set the PGA
Tour single-season money record.
Woods is the first golfer to be honored as Male Athlete of
the Year by the AP since Lee Trevino in 1971 and is only the fifth
golfer to receive the award since it was instituted in 1931.
Woods joins Gene Sarazen (1932), Byron Nelson (1944-45), Ben
Hogan (1953) and Trevino in receiving the award.
"It's really significant and I appreciate the fact that
so few golfers have won it," Woods said. "I'm surprised
it turned out this way, but I am very pleased with the award."
Woods finished with 231 points in the voting to 100 for Sanders.
Evander Holyfield was third with 98 points.
Sanders joined Eric Dickerson and O.J. Simpson as the only
NFL players to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season.
Holyfield lost a piece of his ear but retained the WBA heavyweight
title in June when Mike Tyson was disqualified for biting him.
Rounding out the top-five vote getters were Michael Jordan
and Brett Favre. Ken Griffey Jr. was sixth, followed by Jeff Gordon,
Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Mario Lemieux.
Woods likely won the award as much for the stir he created
off the course as for the success he had on it.
He won the opening tournament of the year in dramatic fashion
when he nearly made a hole-in-one on the first playoff hole at
the Mercedes Championships in January.
Woods then took the Asian Honda Classic in February in Thailand,
his mother Tida's homeland, where his arrival received live TV
coverage usually reserved for heads of state.
His victory at the Masters was by a record-shattering 12 strokes
and took on added social significance not only because Woods was
the first non-white to win a major golf championship but also
because he did it at Augusta National Golf Club, a virtual symbol
of racial separation in the sport.
Woods' ethnic background - his father is black and his mother
is from Thailand - took on added meaning a week after the Masters
when a video tape showed PGA Tour player Fuzzy Zoeller making
racially insensitive remarks on the day of the final round at
the Masters.
Zoeller apologized and Woods accepted but was obviously hurt
and just as obviously remained angered by the comments.
Woods won his next tournament after the Masters - the Byron
Nelson Classic - and won again at the Western Open in early July,
and finished the year as the first player to win more than $2
million on the PGA Tour.
By the time he reached his first anniversary as a professional
- Aug. 27 - investigative reporting by The Associated Press determined
that Woods' financial impact on the game was valued at more than
$650 million, including more than $100 million in endorsement
deals for himself.
Also by August, it was clear that the mental and physical demands
of his first full year as a professional were taking a toll on
Woods. He failed to win after the first week of July, and while
playing 20 of 34 rounds in the 60s to start the year, finished
by being in the 60s only 15 times in his last 47 rounds.
"It was more difficult than anyone ever imagines,"
Woods said about the strain. "People think I have been doing
this forever. And I have been playing golf for 20 years. But never
this much. I lost some of my focus just being tired. I'm human
just like everyone else."
For a while in 1997 it appeared as if Woods were superhuman,
and though he tailed off in the second half of the year it was
clear that he was the equal of the enormous hype that accompanied
his arrival on the PGA Tour.
It was a performance good enough to make Woods the AP Male
Athlete of the Year.
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