In part four of his 'PGA TOUR Radio Daze' features, Grant Boone recalls the first year of the PGA TOUR Radio Network. And how the PGA TOUR came into its own because of titanic superstar, and how the fledgling network missed the boat.

By Grant Boone, Special to PGA.com

This is part four in GMT's series "PGA Tour Radio Daze." To read the first three columns, click here for part one, here for part two, here for part three, and here for incontrovertible evidence that the clock is ticking on civilization as we know it. I had planned to recap Tiger Woods' convincing victory at his own Target World Challenge until I caught a nasty case of shin splints from Rory Sabbatini. Actually, that's not true. Shin splints are not contagious. Unfortunately, pregnancy, as we've learned through the years, is highly communicable. That explains the news this week that Britney Spears' baby sister, Jamie Lynn, is herself with child, an announcement that's sadly not hard to conceive. Jamie Lynn said her boyfriend and she were in "total shock" and that it was "so unexpected." They obviously ignored what the Hollywood Journal of Medicine calls the "Rule of Joanie and Chachi," which states that teenagers should always keep at least one foot on the floor when in the same bed. Gotta go. My flight to Hawaii is about to take off. I mean, my shin splints are killing me.

The 1997 golf season ended with varying degrees of optimism for the PGA Tour and its new radio network. Theirs was unbridled, ours cautious.

It was a year in which the league firmly established itself as a true Tour de force among other sports, and they had Tiger Woods and him alone to thank. Woods proved the 2 wins in his first 8 career starts at the end of the previous year weren't a fluke but rather a foreshadowing of his becoming one of the greatest players of all time. It wasn't just that he won 4 times; it was how he did it and how many people he put in front of television sets to watch.

Consider Woods' 4 wins in 1997:

Mercedes Championships - Woods got in the season-opening tournament of champions by virtue of those 2 titles at the end of '96, in Vegas where he beat Davis Love in a playoff and at Disney where he didn't have to go to a playoff because the late Taylor Smith was DQ'd for having a non-conforming grip on his putter. The kid had made a splash. On the course for sure, but also in that interview before his Tour debut in Milwaukee with ABC's Curtis Strange, in which he said he "expected" to win every tournament he entered. An incredulous, if not offended, Strange responded famously, "You'll learn." No one really said it publicly, but some of the veteran players figured that education would begin in 1997 once the best players returned to the Tour en masse. Instead, Woods birdied his last four holes at La Costa on Saturday of the Mercedes to get a share of the lead with Tom Lehman and found himself in a playoff when Sunday's final round was washed out. They played 1 hole, the par 3 7th (now the 16th). Lehman, the reigning British Open champion and Player of the Year, went first and yanked his tee shot in the water. Needing only to put his tee shot on the green and two- or maybe even three-putt for the win, Woods stepped up and nearly holed it. The win sent a clear message to the rest of the Tour - oh, yes, and to Strange - "No, you'll learn."

The Masters - You might remember this one. It was like a charity scramble with two divisions: there was the Mortal Flight, which Tom Kite won by a shot over Tommy Tolles to avoid a scorecard playoff and claim the $25 pro shop gift certificate; and then there was Tiger. Woods spotted Augusta National 4 shots on his first 9 holes, then proceeded to play the next 63 in 22 under to win his first major as a professional. His 270 total, 12-shot margin of victory, and age (21) established new Masters records which still stand. But the numbers don't even begin to explain the cultural significance of Woods' achievement. Young black men had always been welcome at Augusta National. After all, the great captains of American industry had shoes that needed shining and bags toted and goblets of sweet tea refilled. But for one of those nabobs to go and fetch a Green Jacket for a young man of color instead of the other way around? Law', child! It turned the tables on centuries of discrimination within the sport and served notice that the game was about to change forever.

(Side note: the other night, my kids and I watched The Greatest Game Ever Played, the movie about Francis Ouimet's stunning defeat of Harry Vardon and Ted Ray at the 1913 U.S. Open. That's probably still the greatest upset of all time, but I'm not sure there's been a more important tournament in golf history - by any measure - than Woods' triumph at the '97 Masters.)

GTE Byron Nelson Classic - So much for a Masters hangover. In his first tournament since Augusta and with the tournament's namesake watching from his 18th hole perch, Woods picked up where he left off, overpowering the TPC Las Colinas with a 17 under, 263 final tally. But again the numbers took a backseat. The letter that made headlines in Big D was C. That's the grade Tiger gave his own game in a week that saw him win his fifth trophy in 16 tries. For his new peers, whose egos were still tender and purply from the Masters beatdown - not to mention the reality that the Tour as they'd known it was probably gone for good - Woods' self-evaluation was received about as well as Don Imus at a Rutgers pep rally.

Motorola Western Open - Golf historians remember this event as the second tournament Woods won with me behind the mike at PGA Tour Radio Network. On Fourth of July Weekend, the sport's new Pied Piper finished first in Second City and in the process won over the unofficial capital of public golf in America. After his final approach shot Sunday afternoon and with his fourth victory of the season well in hand, the gallery filed in behind Woods and walked him up the 18th fairway. Great champion, great town, great scene. (By no means did the Tour want to risk something like that happening again, so they euthanized the Western and put Chicago in a rotation of host cities for the BMW Championship. Future plans call for the removal of grandstands at all Tour events.)

It wasn't the Grand Slam, but Woods' 4 wins in 1997 and ascension in June to #1 in the world rankings marked the first time since Tom Watson's run in the early 1980s that the game's most dominant player was also its most popular. (Note to the Greg Norman Fan Club: First of all, I'm one of you. I know the Shark was a huge fan favorite and #1 in the world at the same time, but his inability to consistently seal the deal in majors kept him from being truly dominant. P.S. I hope this doesn't keep me from getting invited to his wedding.) Woods' wins, on and off the course, yielded a massive TV contract for the PGA Tour, which in turn dramatically increased tournament purses. By the way, it was about this time that all those guys who got their panties in a wad over Woods' "C game" comment forgave him. If ever a radio network dedicated exclusively to golf had a chance, this era would be it.

The floodgates were open, but revenue at PGA Tour Radio Network came only in occasional drips. In lieu of actual commercials, we ran those Tour-produced "Anything's Possible" public service announcements. Ran them into the ground, in fact. Each hour, we'd take 18 minutes worth of commercial breaks even though we had no real commercials to air. Every now and then, we'd squeeze in a live golf shot just to break up the monotony.

The dearth of commercials would signal the ultimate death of PGA Tour Radio Network, seeing as how ad dollars are the only way broadcast entities stay afloat. But we were living in the Age of Clinton, so "Don't ask, don't tell" seemed a reasonable mantra for those of us under the company's employ. We knew there was no money coming in and assumed that couldn't go on forever; but as long as the paychecks kept coming twice a month, we kept working.

The 1998 PGA Tour season began with the Mercedes Championships at La Costa near San Diego, and we were there in full throat. Woods and Mark O'Meara shot Sunday 64s but came up 1 short of the winner Phil Mickelson. We stayed on the road, following the Tour to Palm Springs for the Bob Hope, then Phoenix, and Pebble Beach where it rained so hard they had to shorten the event to 54 holes, the last 18 of which weren't played until the day after the PGA Championship in August.

There were storm clouds over the PGA Tour Radio Network offices in Atlanta, too. We were told the plug could be pulled at any moment, specifically the moment when Crawford Communications decided they would no longer send a tech crew out without being paid for previous work. That decision was made when we returned from the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines the week after Pebble.

"Don't ask, don't tell" didn't work anymore. Ironically, the President and we were headed for the same fate that year: we'd each be called on the carpet for past sins and publicly humiliated. Incredibly, both of us would land on our feet.

Grant Boone is a husband, father, golf broadcaster, and sports journalist based in Abilene, Texas. His column appears on PGA.com each Wednesday and every day during major championships and other big events. He can be contacted at pgagrant@hotmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com or The PGA of America.