If pilots flying into Hawthorne Municipal Airport/Jack Northrop Field on the morning of November 22 wondered why the airport was closed for an hour-and-a-half, the notam announcing the closing didn’t provide much information except to cite “construction testing” and a “business event.” The business event turned out to be the first stop of a two-day Nike Golf “whistle-stop” tour, where famous golfers fly in to promote Nike’s new series of drivers called SasQuatch Sumo2. The closing of the Hawthorne runway was to allow the assembled print and television media to watch Tiger Woods take a whack at some golf balls with the new Sumo2.
Fortunately, the airport management didn’t have to worry about Tiger snap-hooking into a group of airplanes parked near the runway or slicing into adjacent 120th street and the cars thereon. (The media pack–mostly golf magazine and television reporters–got to try their own skills with the Sumo2 after Tiger hit a few balls; the results weren’t nearly as pretty, and more than one ball was seen bouncing off the pavement between cars zooming by on 120th street, which parallels the runway.)
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