The Tiger I Know
Golf World's senior tour writer says golf's No. 1 is as intuitive and inscrutable as ever -- and don't expect that to change
If there's a fascinating contradiction to Tiger, it is that the most ruthless competitor alive is as non-confrontational as they come.
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We met on the eve of the 1996 Skins Game in his room at the La Quinta Resort near Palm Springs. One month shy of his 21st birthday, Eldrick Woods already had two PGA Tour victories, a head of bad hair and a level of self-assuredness you don't find in people twice his age. To call young Tiger cocky, however, would have been a misread.
Six months removed from his sophomore year at Stanford, Woods seemed like a kid whose pursuit of premium education had sharpened his wit and dulled his ego. The 90 minutes we spent together were filled with needles, laughs and salty language, the highlight coming when Tiger delighted a small audience with swing imitations of Arnold Palmer, Fred Couples and several others.
They were hilarious because they were impeccable, a reality act that proved just as funny when Woods mimicked my own action a few years later. He'd seen me take four or five cuts with his persimmon driver earlier that spring at Isleworth and said nothing, but during a practice session in Dallas, Tiger suddenly broke from his routine, hunched his back and opened his shoulders.
"You still doing this?" he asked, replicating my outside-in downswing with a touch of humorous exaggeration.
As the world's best golfer made fun of me, I wasn't sure whether to feel flattened or flattered. "Hit the inside of the ball," Woods added in a voice that made it sound like more of a command than a suggestion. I shot 73 at Preston Trail CC the next morning, and in the 6½ years since, those six words of advice remain the simplest and most reliable golf tip I've received from anyone.
By no means should one get the impression Woods and I hang out, go to dinner or socialize even a little bit. We don't. Although he has been good for a lot of laughs and some of my fondest memories as a reporter, our relationship is strictly business. As Golf World previews the 2008 PGA Tour, as I enter my 13th year on the beat and Woods approaches his 12th full season on golf's main stage, I thought it might be worth sharing how much -- and how little -- the game's top player has changed since our paths first crossed. One of his recent commercials does a pretty fair job of portraying the Tiger I've gotten to know.
Tennis superstar Roger Federer brushes his hand against Woods' cheek, impressed by his close shave. Tiger shoots him a look, then turns to French soccer stud Thierry Henry as if to say, "What's with this knucklehead?" It captures Woods' dry comedic nature and, at the risk of gleaning too much from the scene, a certain lack of comfort over the violation of his personal space.
One thing about Tiger: He'd rather you not get too close, physically or emotionally. Notably missing that night before the Skins Game was anything resembling heavy conversation, and until recently, Woods seemed allergic to public introspection. It was a trait that served him well on and off course, no doubt reinforced by the backlash of a GQ article that appeared in 1997. Much of that story's focus played off Woods telling a few dirty jokes and displaying his juvenile side. If behavior from the movie "Porky's" doesn't exactly make you a deep thinker, the GQ incident killed any chance of Tiger developing a glib or analytical public persona. The vulnerability factor was too high, the reaction too extreme, but most of all, the alternative came naturally.
His late father, Earl, was the king of contemplation whose busy brain coincided with a therapeutic urge to transmit those thoughts, but Tiger is a different animal. When God-given ability lands you on network television before kindergarten, reflex tells you to ride your talent and avoid mental clutter. Woods' willingness to trust his instincts has as much to do with his greatness as any physical attribute. His read-and-react sensibilities rarely betray him, which further reduces any urge to become philosophically inclined.
Diagnosis without depth. At the Byron Nelson Classic a few years back, I kidded Tiger about holding a 45-minute press conference and not offering a sentence of insight or substance. "You're better at saying nothing than you are at golf," I commented, to which Woods replied with a hearty chuckle. Now I realize he doesn't necessarily leave crumbs on purpose -- generally speaking, it's not his nature to get meditative or anecdotal.
Plenty of players are reluctant to open up to the media, but with Woods, introspection leads to complication, and complications are dangerous. Our private conversations have been just as thin. Five minutes after ribbing him about his inane media servings, I watched Tiger offer a putting tip to a well-known tour pro on the TPC at Las Colinas practice green. The player was genuinely appreciative of Tiger's counsel and would be seen an hour later working on the same alteration. "He'll still suck," Woods assessed with a straight face as he headed swiftly toward his next task.
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