quote:
He did relatively little for recreational golf play but did increase prize purses simply by increasing golf viewership.
This is true. What he did was get a decent chunk of people to flip the channel over to golf when he's in contention. But for the most part, those people aren't playing golf, funneling any other money to golf, or doing anything else they weren't already doing before and won't keep doing after.
But I wouldn't say losing those channel flippers causes the game of golf to suffer. Networks and players get a little less rich maybe, that's about it.