Yes. And Duval. And Vijay. And several others. But Tiger just kept winning. And kept winning. And kept winning.
Did the hype have an element of race? For the love of god, yes absolutely. Was his race perhaps even the DRIVING reason for the hype? Yes, but only because his talent was enough to justify him being in the spotlight. He was a prodigy, AND he was black, and those two things together were what made the hype machine go brrr. But then what did Tiger do? He went out and won his 5th start, then won again in his very next start.
Let's face it; the Clark situation is exactly the same goddamned thing. The hype machine in college started because she was very, very good. Her teams won, she elevated historically-good teams into great teams. She WON. And because she was also white, her winning took on a different tone. Then she goes to the league and sets all kinds of records. And because she's white, the winning takes on a different tone.
I'm not saying she's the next Tiger Woods. I'm saying that the hype has a massive racial component that one would be stupid to ignore, and that the parallels to Tiger's impact on the game are valid. More black people started watching golf not because golf suddenly got interesting, but because a black guy was winning golf tournaments. More white people are watching the WNBA not because the product has fundamentally changed in any way, but because there's a white woman excelling on the court. It doesn't make those viewers racist, but there is a racial component.
The backlash from black players who are grumbling about "these fans are only watching because she's white" is entirely and utterly misplaced. Like, who gives a shit? They're WATCHING. And you're on TV now with a chance to speak directly to them, so take it! It also happened in pro golf, btw. But you know what Tiger did? He just kept winning. And those eyeballs just kept watching. And every professional golfer since has made an order of magnitude more money than they would have had Tiger not existed. I'm hopeful that the WNBA sees similar changes.