Tiger roars back, and a PGA app reaps the rewards

Love Tiger Woods or loathe him, professional golf is undoubtedly a far more exciting and relevant sport when he's in the hunt for another title. This weekend brings the 92nd PGA Championship, the final major of the golf season and an event Woods has won four times; in 2009, he lost by three strokes to Y.E. Yang, a shocking upset that heralded the first time Woods squandered victory in a major when leading after three rounds. Woods' defeat seems like a lifetime ago now: In the 12 months between PGA Championship events, he's confessed to multiple marital infidelities, and with his family life in tatters, his golf game has hit the skids as well. Last weekend, Woods tied for second-to-last place in the Bridgestone Invitational, posting a career-worst score of 18 over par. Perhaps no athlete has fallen quite so far quite so fast, and now viewers are abandoning the PGA tour in droves--with Woods embarrassingly far out of contention, CBS's Bridgestone ratings nosedived about 68 percent over the previous year, a tournament he won.

But 18 holes into the PGA Championship, Woods could be righting the ship. He closed out his first round Thursday at -1, three strokes off the lead, and showed occasional flashes of the intensity and focus that made him the most celebrated golfer of his generation. Needless to say, interest in today's second round promises to be significant--Woods is again appointment viewing, at least for one more day. Of course, that day is a Friday, which can pose logistical challenges for fans. Enter Turner Sports, which earlier this week introduced a PGA Championship application optimized for Apple's iPhone--although the free app includes live scoring and instant updates spanning the duration of the tournament, what makes it particularly intriguing and innovative is a $1.99 in-app purchase option giving iPhone owners the chance to follow marquee pairings across all four days of the event (including Woods, in a threesome with Yang and Vijay Singh), complete with live video streaming of all par-3 holes. Fans without access to television or the web can now follow Woods' hole-by-hole progress throughout the weekend (assuming he makes the cut), wherever they are and wherever they go.

The PGA Championship App underscores the vast revenue potential of in-app purchases. Given how many pundits and fans wrote off Woods after his meltdown at Bridgestone, the PGA Championship is in many respects the most significant tournament of his career--for some viewers, it's less about the event than it is about Woods and his fate, and the app enables those viewers to zero in on the golfer they most want to see, all for just two bucks. Woods has always been a draw on mobile: During coverage of the 2008 U.S. Open--which culminated in a sudden-death playoff pitting Woods against underdog Rocco Mediate--ESPN's WAP site averaged more than 2 million unique daily visitors seeking golf information, generating nearly 3 million mobile page views. And when Woods held a February 2010 media event to publicly apologize for his indiscretions, ESPN Mobile notched 1.1 million page views, with mobile video users also spending an average of 9 minutes and 15 seconds screening the 13-minute statement on their handsets. Given Woods' promising start, there's every reason to expect the PGA Championship App will fare similarly well: Tiger may not always be good in his private and professional lives, but he's always good for mobile. -Jason

P.S. Not every app can rely on Tiger Woods as a selling point. In fact, with so many new developers entering the mobile space, it's tougher than ever to make a compelling app that lets you connect with a broad audience. FierceMobileContent is here to help. Join me and executives from companies like GetJar and Flurry for the Fierce Live! webinar 'How to Make a Compelling App,' designed to help developers navigate all facets of the mobile ecosystem. The webinar airs live on Wednesday, Aug. 18 at 2:00 pm ET/11:00 am PT--register here.