It’s a question the Victorian public must ask. On the face of it, many would say no. But when you consider the enjoyment golf brings to so many people, it’s an essential investment.

That’s a question the Victorian public must ask. On the face of it, many would say no.

But when you consider the enjoyment golf brings to so many people, it’s an essential investment.

Golf courses are mostly located in regional Victoria. Visit any golf club outside Melbourne and you’ll quickly realise that they form an integral part of the community. Over the last five years, many of these clubs have noticed a marked slowdown in business. Memberships are slowing, like they are in metropolitan Melbourne, and overall revenue is down.

When a golf club suffers, so too does the community. So how does paying Tiger Woods $3 million change that? Just like Greg Norman’s ability to excite people changed Australian golf in the 1990s.

Tiger is a drawcard for golf like no other.

He can inspire people who play the game and excite people who have never been fortunate enough to swing a club.

For golf courses, that’s just what we need.

If a week of Tiger Woods playing in Melbourne has the ability to get another few thousand people into the game then it’s money well spent. Sure it’s easy to look at the decision by the New Zealand Golf Association to fund his visit a few years ago.

That was a disaster and they’re still paying it off. But that was different.

You would hope that Tiger’s visit to Australia will have lot more attached to it than just playing golf.

I’m sure for $3 million there’s an opportunity to use his services to take golf to new heights.

How Tiger spends his time off the golf course will be just as critical as to how successful he is playing one of Australia’s great courses, Kingston Heath. Let’s hope the governing bodies, the PGA and Golf Australia, work together to ensure the world’s number one golfer can bring maximum value for money.

If it does, there’s little doubt the $3 million fee will never be questioned.

If Tiger’s week in Melbourne fails to have a flow on affect at golf clubs, courses and retailers, then you’d have to say we’d done nothing to learn from the mistakes made by our friends across the Tasman.