So what does Tiger do for an encore?

The man's only 25 years old for heaven's sake. Finally, he's old enough to run for Congress -- as if he'd want to -- and his car insurance rates can go down -- as if he needs to worry about such temporal concerns. But already he's won more golf titles and more golf money than men twice his age. Sure, he can keep on winning tournaments and building his bank account, but where can he go from here?
Top money man: The year Tiger was born, golf's top money pro Jack Nicklaus bagged a grand total of about $300,000. This year, Tiger won over $1 million just for his most recent Master's victory. With $27.3 million, he may have won more money than any other golfer in history, but he'll need at least a few more years to catch up to Nicklaus' lifetime 71 PGA tournament victories.
The catch is that he has to keep playing. Sam Snead won his last major tournament when he was 52. Can Woods keep playing for another 27 years -- let alone keep winning that long?
He can't get complacent, and he can't get arthritis, and he can't get bored.
Too many people and too many companies have a stake in his continued success and popularity.
Almost single-handedly, Woods has turned golf from a game played and watched largely by physically and financially comfortable white men to a game within the reach of anyone who can find a set of clubs and get to a public golf course.
Of course, young men and women have always played golf, but most of them learned to play at the country club golf courses of their parents, where the darkest skins -- of the players, anyway -- were a product of leisurely hours in the sun.
Prodigy: Tiger Woods learned not from the club pro, but from his dad, who had the extraordinary good fortune to have fathered a golf prodigy. At the age of 3, the kid shot a 48 for nine holes, and he wasn't playing miniature golf, either.
Now lots of kids want to be Tiger Woods, and lots of parents wouldn't mind if they did either. They like the idea of their children emulating an athlete who keeps his temper under control, who is gracious in victory as well as in defeat, and who within months of turning pro established a charitable foundation to support organizations which emphasize family values and adult involvement in children's lives.
Quite a contrast to the baseball and football millionaires whose penchant for violence and greed give their sports a bad name.
Oh, there is one thing Woods could do if he gets tired of golf. He can go back to Stanford and finish his degree. Who'd want to hire a college drop-out?