Several weeks ago a new book arrived in your local bookstore and quickly shot up the best seller lists. Authored by Jeff Benedict of Sports Illustrated and Armen Keteyian of CBS News, the book is simply titled Tiger Woods (Simon & Shuster, $30). An easy read that is 470 pages long, it is the most comprehensive look into the life of arguably the world’s most well-known athlete of the modern era.
While there is a lot of common knowledge about Tiger’s victories and exploits, this book is a multi-year endeavor into the entire life of Tiger Woods. The authors spent a lot of time researching and interviewing people who knew Tiger up close and personal.
Tiger’s earliest days were basically scripted. He was raised to be a great golfer in much the same way that other youth were raised such as Todd Marinovich, the Williams sisters, Jennifer Capriati, and Sean O’Hair. His father, Earl Woods, was an avid golfer. Tiger started watching his dad hit golf balls from his high chair. Tiger was fascinated by the game, got early exposure as a 2-year-old on the Merv Griffin show alongside guest and golf fanatic Bob Hope, and had some degree of natural ability. His father was an outstanding athlete who was a catcher at Kansas State University during a time when pro baseball featured exactly zero black athletes.
Everything in his early life centered around his golf. When he first attended kindergarten, his teachers said he was academically advanced, a tribute to his mother who pushed him academically and intellectually. Tiger didn’t participate in other youth activities such as team sports, music or scouting. There is a telling moment in the book when Tiger skins his knee while playing on the playground. Tiger is visibly upset, not because he is hurt, but because he’ll get in trouble for playing soccer at school. Golf was his only activity during his childhood. Because his major source of human contact was playing golf with his father at the local military run golf course, Tiger had difficulty socializing with his peer group. He had a stuttering problem as a young child, said very little and didn’t look people in the eye. His father, a former Green Beret, tried to toughen Tiger up with military techniques such as verbal abuse, put-downs and racial insults. The idea was that Tiger would be able to handle anything that came his way from a difficult opponent to the most obnoxious members of his golfing galleries. In a nutshell, the most comfortable place for Tiger Woods during his formative years was on the local golf course.
Woods started taking lessons from a Los Angeles-area teaching professional named Rudy Duran. Nowadays, Duran is the head pro at The Links at Paso Robles, a golf course he designed. Like many people who helped Tiger out during his early days, Duran never charged for his weekly lessons. Tiger was a dominant player at an early age and often moved up in age groups, playing in the 10-11 division as a 7-year-old. He developed a winning mentality that was heavily influenced by his father. If up by five shots, you’ve got to go up by six, and then seven, and so on. Don’t just beat your opponent, crush him.
Yet socially Tiger was considered a geek. Most of his fellow high school students knew little of his golfing exploits even though he was a three-time U.S. Junior champ. He did have a girlfriend throughout high school who helped him become more social, but at his parents’ behest, he broke up with her … via letter. She was getting in the way of his golf.
As everyone knows, Tiger attended Stanford University although he strongly advanced the idea that he wanted to attend UNLV. However, his mother wanted him to go to Stanford and that’s where he went. He started working with well-known instructor Butch Harmon and during their nine years together, Woods won three U.S. Amateurs and eight professional majors. After those nine years Tiger dumped Harmon and from that point onward refused to acknowledge him. Harmon is quoted as saying that “Tiger was obsessed with perfection.” Harmon also added, “He’s not good at looking you in the eye and saying something.”
As Tiger became successful as well as famously rich, he started venturing to Las Vegas. A Vegas nightclub owner is quoted in the book as comparing Tiger to Michael Jackson. “Tiger wasn’t allowed to have a childhood.” Another Vegas club manager was quoted as saying, “When Tiger got famous, he got mean.” Woods was a notoriously bad tipper in Vegas and had a reputation for ignoring people. As an aside, Tiger’s reputation for tightness with the dollar was a persistent theme in his adult life. At various times Butch Harmon as well as PGA Tour officials would tip on his behalf since it was something he seldom seemed to do.
The greatest golfer of the modern era had glaring personality flaws to those who knew him best. 60 Minutes reporter Ed Bradley stated that “he was undeveloped as a person.” When Tiger blew off Mark O’Meara’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony, O’Meara chastised him and stated, “Sooner or later you have to be a human being.” Michael Silver of Sports Illustrated wrote, “Has any great athlete ever looked so grim while doing his job?”
A book of this magnitude is hard to encapsulate into a weekly golf column. There is an entire chapter about Tiger and Dr. Anthony Galea, the HGH doctor, who performed 14 “treatments” on Woods at a cost of $76,000. The women of Tiger’s life are freely quoted in another section of the book. The most glaring thing from my weak perspective is that when Tiger wanted them to join him on a tour stop, he sent an airline ticket. The ticket was always in the coach section. Similar to the contentions made in the Hank Haney book, Tiger’s desire to be a Navy SEAL after the 9/11 World Trade Center bombings probably precipitated his knee and leg injuries.
In the end, if there is a common thread in Tiger Woods by Jeff Benedict and Arman Keteyian, it is that Tiger’s entire early life was scripted, and once his father passed away in 2006, he went way off script. He had an overwhelming sense of entitlement, an inability to show gratitude, an inability to apologize, and was unable to express appreciation. He barely ever said thank you. His needs were all that mattered although to be quite fair there are a lot of gifted entertainers, athlete, and politicians who behave similarly. This book about the era’s top golfer is a most fascinating as well as an easy read. Just be aware that our sports heroes aren’t always what they seem. What made Tiger a great golfer also made him a flawed human being.
