World number one golf Tiger Woods of the United States teed off from the Bosphorus Bridge on Tuesday (November 5), hitting ten golf balls towards the European end of the bridge which spans the continents of Asia and Europe. Traffic on one side of the bridge was stopped for an hour while Woods, perched on a dais, hit the balls - watched by reporters, officials and filmed by scores of cameras. Woods joins other sports stars who have driven, served or run from continent to continent in Istanbul. Venus Williams has played tennis on the bridge and F1 driver David Coulthard drove a Red Bull car across the bridge. Woods is coming back for two tournaments at the end of the year having had a break. "Practice has been good," he told Reuters. "I didn't touch the clubs for almost two weeks. I just shut it down, got away from it, put the clubs in storage and just hung out with the kids and trained obviously, in the gym, but I didn't want to have anything to do with the golf for a while. We played so much golf in the British Open on, through the World Golf Championship, the Majors, PGA, the play-offs, and the Americans had to play the President's Cup. It was a lot of golf, at the end of the year and I was tired of it. So I put the clubs away and get refreshed and now we got two more tournaments to make a run again." The world number one was also suffering from a heavy cold but was otherwise fine. "My daughter Sam was sick, and it's just the way it goes," he explained. "Kids get sick, and you get sick, and you just got to deal with it. I have done it for years now so it's no biggy. Asked if the cold was going to affect his performance, Woods said it was not that bad. "No, no. I feel good, energy-wise feels great, I just do not sound the same. So that part is - it is what it is." Tuesday's publicity event was part of a general move to raise the profile of golf in Turkey, and other countries, where the game is not closely followed. "I know that, they are are trying to promote the golf around the world and as I explained earlier, I think the inclusion of the Olympics has changed the dynamics of how we think about golf," said Woods. "There are other countries that are not getting more involved. China has been unbelievable what they have done in the last 12 years, and the number of kids that have come through the programmes and see, a little kid like Guan (Tianlang) you know make it to Masters at age 14. That is what is coming, that is the next wave of kids. Give them 10 to 20 years and you are going to see certain countries start to dominate the game of golf." The Turkish Open runs from November 7 to 10.

• published: 06 Nov 2013
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