News

Newsmakers Of The Year No. 1: Tiger Woods

By Jaime Diaz Photos by J.D. Cuban
December 02, 2013
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Maybe there isn't anything newsy about choosing Woods as the year's top newsmaker. But we aren't hitting the default button. Even without winning a major championship to gain any ground on Jack Nicklaus' career record, Woods in 2013 was a bigger lightning rod than ever. He was the subject of the calamitous carom at Augusta and cascading criticism, culminating with Brandel Chamblee's implication of cheating following his moving-ball penalty at the BMW Championship. Woods' failure to fire at Merion, Muirfield or Oak Hill -- contrasting so sharply with virtuoso performances at the Players and Firestone -- saw the 14-time major winner who now hasn't broken 70 on the weekend in nine straight Grand Slam events widely diagnosed with major-itis. But Woods hardly seemed haunted in his surprisingly public displays of affection for his two young children and girlfriend Lindsey Vonn, who further humanized him by telling an interviewer Woods is "dorky." Through it all, Woods won five times on the PGA Tour, reclaimed world No. 1 and was voted the tour's player of the year by his peers. Is the game's best player still good enough to be the best of all time? Who knows, but it's because the question endures that he remains golf's biggest newsmaker.