“Hello world.”
It was an orchestrated line, part of a Nike campaign designed to coincide with the professional debut of 20-year-old Tiger Woods.
In fact, it was actually “I guess, hello world, huh?” when Woods opened his press conference one day before the start of the Greater Milwaukee Open on Aug. 28, 1996.
Within two days, Nike’s “Hello world” ad campaign included a three-page spread in the Wall Street Journal and a number of televised advertisements. In fact, Nike shelved all of its previous national television ads and aired its Woods spot 28 times during first-round coverage of the GMO on ESPN.
History doesn’t remember it as forced or contrived, the way “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach” awkwardly landed from the lips of LeBron James nearly 14 years later. In the category of watershed press conferences delivered by the half-century’s transcendent athletes, Woods outshined LeBron with the right dash of earnestness and charm.
He delivered those words at Brown Deer Park Golf Course in northern Milwaukee County. Woods was about to embark on a legendary career unlike anything the golf world had seen before, and he was getting started on Aug. 28, 1996, at the Greater Milwaukee Open. The turnout was estimated at 150,000 spectators, easily the most in event history, when Milwaukee became the surprise setting for the dawn of a new era.
He took 60th place, but that was beside the point
Woods finished a mere 60th place in the event, but he nonetheless left winner Loren Roberts as an afterthought, even after Roberts defeated Madison native Jerry Kelly in a playoff for the title while Edgerton’s Steve Stricker hovered just one stroke back of the leaders.
It wasn’t until the week of the event that word came Woods was seriously considering turning pro in advance of the tournament, though even then, it wasn’t a sure thing. To that point, the prevailing sentiment was that Woods, who committed in April to play the GMO with a sponsor’s exemption, could potentially turn pro if he won the event or the Quad City Classic two weeks later.
Tiger Woods plays a shot on the fairway during his pro debut at the 1996 Greater Milwaukee Open at the Brown Deer Golf Course in Wisconsin. (Photo: J.D. Cuban/Allsport)
But then, he won his third straight U.S. Amateur Title in Oregon the week before the GMO, roaring back from down five holes to turn the feat, and the possibility grew…
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