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SALT LAKE CITY -- Activity at golf courses all across Utah -- and the country, for that matter -- seemed to come to a stop at noon Monday.
That's because the world's most well-known golfer, Tiger Woods, was holding his first press conference since taking a break from the sport.
This was a big deal for golfers, especially since this press conference was for the Masters Golf Tournament. It'll be the first tournament Tiger will play in since his life was turned upside down in November.
Love him or hate him, there's no denying there is a ton of interest in how he performs this week.
Related:
Tiger says he expects to win the Masters
While acknowledging he made some "incredibly poor decisions" in his personal life, Tiger Woods still thinks he can win the Masters _ even coming back from a five-month layoff.At Mountain View Golf Course in West Jordan, those who came in to pay their greens fees stopped and watched TV -- because Tiger was on it. Most of the time golfers like to get out on the course as quickly as possible, but this wasn't the case Monday.
Employees at other Utah golf courses said the same thing was happening there. People just wanted to see what questions were asked of Tiger and how he responded to them.
KSL interviewed some golfers and asked them all the same question: What did they think of all this attention going to Tiger?
"Whatever he did in the past is his personal life. That's his problem. It's their business. It's none of our business," said Riverton resident Dennis Land. "We need Tiger back. Greatest golfer of all time."
Mitch Erekson of South Jordan said, "He's been making some bad choices, I guess, but he gets a lot of attention because he's Tiger."
Skyline High School golfer Nicole Gaddie said, "I know some people will say, ‘Tiger, it's unacceptable,' for what he did, but you have to give it to him for coming back out and playing in the Masters because that's one of the biggest tournaments in golf, and it takes a lot of guts to go out there in front of all those people."
There is certainly going to be a lot of attention to this week's Masters -- more so than normal.
Tiger did admit what he did was wrong and apologized to golf fans. Now, it'll be interesting to see how he's received by those fans when he's actually playing.
E-mail: acabrero@ksl.com
