Been enjoying the PGA this week, watching Tiger Woods run amok with the field – at least, that’s what he’s doing right now on my TiVo – not sure how it all ends. Anyhow, I noticed the stuffed Tiger in his bag and my kids asked about it. Not sure of the origin, I found him explained on Wikipedia. Not sure how I missed all of this, but here goes.

Frank

“Frank” is the name given to the club cover always on Tiger’s bag. It is a plush tiger head created by his mother Kultida. On it is stiched, “from mom with love” in Thai.

An animatronic version of Frank, created by M5 Industries

[15], was used in several Nike Golf commercials starting in 2003, where Frank would give advice to Tiger, or even seem to be more a nuisance than a help, much in the same vein as the “Lil’ Penny” commercials Nike did with Penny Hardaway in the mid-1990s. In one commercial, Frank was talking trash at Charles Barkley during a pro-am. In another, when Tiger thought Frank was giving bad advice, Tiger told Frank, “You can be replaced.”

JG