The Loop

Missing Links: For Tiger's new sponsor, it's a way to 'carve Hero brand in minds of Americans'

December 01, 2014

Stories of interest you might have missed…

So why has an India-based bicycle company taken on sponsorship of Tiger Woods' tournament, the Hero World Challenge, that will be played this week? "Despite all his scandals and controversy," Shaili Chopra of DNAIndia writes, "Tiger Woods remains a superlative athlete and associating with him will mean a blockbuster branding exercise. Hero is accelerating plans to expand in the US…This effort to engage with Tiger Woods is strategic and not just a show of support for the sport. This is a branding exercise [to] carve the Hero brand in minds of Americans."

/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2015/07/20/55ad7b5db01eefe207f7031c_blogs-the-loop-Tiger%20Woods%20World%20Challenge.jpg

(Getty Images photo)

"Have we just witnessed the arrival of Jordan Spieth as more than just a really good player with enormous promise? Is he golf's next superstar?" writer John Huggan asks in the wake of Spieth's dominant victory in the Australian Open. "Well, it depends who you talk to."


Here is Joey Ferrari's resume: Northern California Player of the Year in 1992, two-time semifinalist in the San Francisco City Championship (1991 and '95) and finalist in the U.S. Mid-Amateur and California State Amateur in '93…qualified for the 1994 U.S. Open…started using drugs…began selling drugs…landed in prison for 10 years. At U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship qualifying today at Poppy Hills, "let's just say Joey Ferrari brings the most unusual backstory in the field," Ron Kroichick writes in the San Francisco Chronicle.


"I'll have to listen to what the university says to decide how I will do my studies. I'll have to make sure I submit the required papers and projects as the majority of my classes." A typical 17-year-old, right? Wrong. This is Lydia Ko, No. 3 in the Rolex Rankings and recent winner of of the CME Group Tour Championship, the Race to the CME Globe and $1.5 million. Ko has been admitted to the prestigious Korea University in Seoul, where she will study psychology, according to this Reuters story in the Daily Mail.


"On Callawassie Island, you can buy land any time you like.

But you can never leave," Dan Burley writes in South Carolina's Island Packet. "At least that's what some island property owners claim in a federal lawsuit filed last month." In 2001, the island's private golf club began requiring new property owners there to become dues-paying members. One woman intending to retire there is now "paying $640 a month for a golf club she hasn't visited in seven years, she said. When she tried to resign, she was told she couldn't leave until she paid $38,000 in dues and found someone else to take her membership."