The English journalist Simon Barnes once wrote about the strange case of the Williams sisters and why, despite all their success and their incredible back-story, the Centre Court crowd had steadfastly withheld their affection from the pair.
He concluded, after recalling the careers of John McEnroe and Steffi Graf, who were once loathed and resented but later became beloved, that the Williams sisters needed to endure a series of setbacks, or a sustained period on their backside.
Then, once they mustered a comeback and entered the twilight phase of their careers, the sentimental Centre Court crowd would shower them in love and will them to victory against whatever bratty young superstar had just emerged from Nick Bollettieri's academy.
There are some things the Centre Court crowd can't resist and one of them is an old stager enjoying an Indian summer.
Tiger Woods makes another of his comebacks this week. He tees off in the Hero World Challenge, an event hosted by Tiger himself and whose proceeds go to the Tiger Woods Foundation. Eight of the world's top ten tee off alongside him, with only Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy absent.
Woods himself is at 1199 in the world, as of this week. Watching his world ranking zoom up in the past few years has been like visiting the Irish National Debt Clock.org website.
He last played in the Dubai Desert Classic in early February, where he was forced to withdraw with injury after an opening round 77.
Like all great champions, Woods wasn't always universally popular when he was mowing down the competition during his pomp.
Plenty of golf fans remained wowed by the Tiger all through his glory years, especially those of a 'You the Man!' disposition. America has an innocent and ungrudging reverence for 'winners'. But many others, especially in Europe, grew weary of the robotic accumulation of trophies.
However, there is a growing sense that his career shouldn't peter out in this dismal way. That people yearn to see him back at the top like the old days, giving it one last hurrah.
Hollywood has conditioned us into believing we deserve another Act. After all, if this was a movie, he'd come out of retirement and win the US Masters in his mid-40s, and probably meet his future wife in the same weekend. Having stuffed the haters and proven he could win another major, Woods would then toss his clubs into Ray's Creek and ride off into the sunset with his new bride, the strong implication being that he would remain faithful to her.
Of course, that's Hollywood. If this was a European arthouse movie directed by say, Bertolucci, there'd be no redemption and Woods would become steadily more reclusive and unapproachable, eventually moving to Vienna to become a street painter.
Before Woods arrived on the scene around 96-97, golf's biggest draws were Seve Ballesteros, whose form had already dipped violently by that stage, Greg Norman, who seemed to fritter away at least one major a year, and the 'grip it and rip it, one man soap opera, John Daly. Nick Faldo enjoyed a role as golf's pantomime villain, the heartless automaton who trampled on the hopes of the neutrals' favourites.
But the American golf scene was fairly twee and conservative in the pre-Tiger era. All the players resembled minor Dallas characters on their 'vacation'.
Tournaments were won by the likes of Tom Kite and Ray Floyd and Hale Irwin. Fine players but not guys who excited vast swathes of the watching public on this side of the Atlantic.
If the GAA was once 'Fianna Fáil at play', then the PGA tour resembled 'Republican donors at play'.
Indeed, before the 1993 Ryder Cup, several members of the US team were deeply reluctant to meet Bill Clinton and had to be talked around by their diplomatic captain Tom Watson. According to author John Feinstein, not one member of the team had voted for Clinton in the '92 Presidential election and they all hated his plans to tax the wealthy. The golf community has found Republican Presidents, including the present one, far easier to stomach.
Tiger was hardly a socialist and was never in danger of turning up at any Nation of Islam events but his very presence livened up a previously monochrome landscape. Seven years before he blew apart the field at the 1997 US Masters, the USGA staged the PGA Championship at Shoal Creek, a course which explicitly forbade the admission of black members.
Hall W Thompson, the founder of the host club, attempted to deflect the criticism by pointing out that Jews and women were counted among their members and noted that "we don't discriminate in every other area except the blacks."
TV ratings skyrocketed in the Tiger years. Between 1999 and 2006, rating figures fell by an average of 25% whenever he wasn't involved in a tournament. The 2014 Masters, which Woods missed, saw the lowest TV ratings for the Augusta extravaganza since 1993.
For a long time it seemed inevitable that he would beat Jack Nicklaus's record of eighteen majors. Only grey-haired nostalgics openly doubted that he would beat Nicklaus's tally, the type of guys who scoff whenever it's suggested Lionel Messi should be placed on the same plain as Pele or Maradona.
Now, almost a decade after his last major win, there's not even the remotest possibility that Woods will overtake Nicklaus. The Golden Bear will remain on top for the forseeable.
As usual, Woods was in aggressively philosophical mood in his pre-competition press conference in the Bahamas this afternoon. He has shed his competitive pride and adopted an 'it's the taking part that counts' attitude.
"I didn’t know if retirement was the word, but I didn't know if I could play golf with my friends again. Playing golf at an elite level was the furthest thing in my mind," he said when asked whether he contemplated retirement.
For this week, he says he's tempered his expectations and will 'take it easy' on himself. But he adds that he is injury-free and insists he has recovered from his addiction to painkilling drugs.
Some folk will have a hard time believing Woods when he says he feels fantastic. At certain moments, he sounds like David Brent insisting to the documentary interviewer that things have never been better after being cut loose by Wernham Hogg.
But watching Woods joshing around with reporters prior to today's press conference, one was struck by how content he appeared.
Nor did he shy away from how tough the last couple of years have been, as he battled chronic back pain and spent much of 2016 confined to his bed.
Such has been the extent of Woods's fall that it sounds more fairytale than Hollywood. But wouldn't it be a delight if could mount the comebacks of all comebacks and give us a glorious Indian summer. Sadly, it's probably too far fetched for Hollywood.
