A year ago, Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne delivered a stinging rebuttal to Tiger Woods.
Payne criticised Woods for letting down sport in general saying, in part, the then World No. 1 ‘had disappointed all of us, and more importantly, our kids and our grand kids, and that our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children.”
Twelve months and Payne was asked his opinion of Woods during the now annual ‘Masters Address’ held on the eve of the Masters.
Billy Payne, Augusta National chairman
“We continue to believe Tiger Woods is one of the greatest golfers of all-time, and we hoped and prayed that his comeback would go forward in a very positive way,” said Payne.
Also Woods name is to be associated with Augusta National in another way with the Georgian club with the release of a DVD game.
“This decision was completely based on our motivation to positively influence the growth and visibility of the sport of golf,” said Payne.
“Playing video games is a popular entertainment choice for kids today, and our involvement just may, we hope, inspire greater appreciation for golf, and in turn, encourage participation.
“To further add to our commitment, the entirety of our proceeds from this game will be given to our newly-created Masters Tournament Foundation with the hope and expectation that these additional resources, together with those historically generated by the Masters Tournament, will enhance our opportunity to support the growth of the game domestically and around the world.
“We embraced EA after much research on the video game side. Tiger has an exclusive arrangement with them. When we embraced the game some two years ago, we took as the partnership of us, EA and Tiger.
“We are very proud of that. It has, in its very early days, has proven to be an enormous success, and we think will very significantly impact the kids in a very positive way, and be very beneficial to our new foundation that we have created, as well.”
However Augusta National will not embrace the new technology now being used at all PGA Tour events, so means no video screens about the course and not ‘Shot Link’.
“We already have cutting-edge technology, but most of it is buried underground,” said Payne smiling.
“But I don’t think, at least in my tenure, you’re not going to see any video boards or those kind of things out there.”
