The Earl I Knew
Earl Woods didn't let many people inside his circle. I was privileged to get a glimpse of a man not many really knew
Tiger and Earl Woods enjoying a photo shoot for Golf Digest in 1991
Dom Furore
Earl Woods, a great man upon close examination who stood for leveling the playing field among other lofty and improbable ideals, didn't reveal his interior to many people. Green Berets are clandestine by necessity. You could probably count the number of trustees to the real Earl on two hands: Tida, his devoted wife of 30-plus years; Tiger, his beloved son whom he taught every good and useful thing he knew in what his dad called the "Earl Woods finishing school;" three children from a previous marriage; his siblings; and Joe Grant, his old military buddy/confidant, who preceded Earl in death by a few months from the same culprit, cancer.
I first met Earl in January 1995. I had flown to California at his request. He had liked a cover piece I had written for Golf World honoring Tiger as the magazine's "Man of the Year" and asked me to help him write a book. I had been with the magazine little more than a year and was still transitioning from small-town life in North Carolina to the faster pace around Golf World's office in Connecticut. Los Angeles was something else entirely. I put a death grip on the steering wheel of the rental car upon entering the hectic expressway near LAX and didn't relinquish it until pulling into the driveway of the Woods' home in Cypress.
"Hi there, young blood," Earl said, greeting me at the door. "You ready to work?"
Earl was never afraid of hard work, an attribute he passed on to Tiger. "You get out of it what you put into it," he would say. We sat in the living room for six hours and recorded Earl's philosophies on parenting a champion in golf and life. Tida fed us Thai barbeque chicken. More than half of Training a Tiger, Earl's best-seller, was written during that session--off the top of Earl's head. He was brilliant that way.
Earl with wife Kultida and Tiger at a 1990 tournament
That was the beginning of a relationship between two people who connected on a lot of levels. I understood the yoke of being a minority in America and the burden of proof placed on us in the oft-unholy game of golf. We would oil that saw whenever injustice, subtle or flagrant, reared its ugly head. Earl understood the vagaries of parenthood, how to handle a rebellious child, how to lead by example and, most importantly, how to love unconditionally even when there is little or no reciprocity. He was my advisor on personal and financial matters; my confidant during some turbulent times in my life; my brother in arms, so to speak; my loyal friend.
Our relationship was one of mutual respect and trust. I came to believe nearly every call Earl made. History had taught me never to doubt him or Tiger. When he said, "Tiger will be the first champion golfer of African-American heritage who didn't come by way of the caddie ranks or hustling. He was raised to be a champion," I never doubted those words.
When he warned me that "you have one and only one screw-up with Tiger, then he'll cut you off just like that," I nodded, years later realizing that Tiger's unforgiving nature is a byproduct of the maternal side of the family, not a directive from "the old man." The morgue is littered with relationships that failed Tida's test. Fortunately, I took Earl's warning to heart.
Earl also was prone to hyperbole, and sometimes it landed him in trouble. When he claimed Tiger would have a similar impact on humanity as Gandi, some folks scoffed. Others were deeply offended. That's because they didn't understand where Earl was coming from. He meant that through golf, Tiger would bring people of all races together. Check out the diversity of Tiger's galleries and philanthropic reach of his foundation. Earl knew what he was talking about.
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