*By Madison Alworth*
Tiger Woods broke a nearly five-year title drought on Sunday when he took the PGA Tour Championship, moving him just three trophies away from setting the record for most wins in the sport’s history.
The pro may be more inspired than ever to hit the links — and most likely, so are his fans.
"He's a needle mover. Whenever he does something great like this, everything in golf moves. So we're really really excited to see it," Eddy Lui, CEO of golf app 18Birdies, said Monday in interview on Cheddar.
The digital platform is a one-stop shop for any golfer. The app has a number of free and for-purchase services that range from tee-time bookings to essential golf tips. But Lui wants to grow into more than that to become "a digital home for all golfers and a technology platform for the entire golf ecosystem."
The 18Birdies platform boasts nearly 1 million golfers, and it recently launched a “player matching” feature, which allows golfers in the same area to match, meet up, and play a round together.
As the app and its reach continue to grow, so have the partnerships. Several powerhouse golf institutions, including tee time registering platform [GolfNow](https://business.golfnow.com/news/golfnow-and-18birdies-announce-integrated-tee-time-partnership-to-super-serve-golfers/), the [Ladies Professional Golf Association](http://www.lpga.com/news/2018-lpga-and-18birdies-announce-joint-initiative), as well as media outlets GolfDigest, and Golfweek, have teamed up with the company to use its services.
Lui's aims to modernize the golf experience and make the game a more convenient and social activity, with every interaction processed on his platform.
"We want to make golf not just a tool, but a lot more accessible and convenient ー and most importantly, more fun."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/18birdie-the-digital-one-stop-shop-for-golfers).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
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