Nike co-founder says not even Tiger could make golf profitable

New York

PHIL Knight, co-founder of Nike Inc, was so enamoured with a young Tiger Woods that the company began recruiting him three years before signing him to an endorsement deal at 20.

"You could see him coming from way back," Mr Knight said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. The young golfer would occasionally play in the the Portland area, near Nike's headquarters, "and we'd always invite him and his father out to lunch". It was the start of a long - and ultimately unprofitable - relationship.