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The Interviews They'd Like Back

Alex Myers and Sam Weinman — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Bad jokes, snubs, and fits of brutal honesty in golf history that have merited a mulligan.

A Mickelson shot you won't want to try

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:57:00 GMT

How good is Phil Mickelson with a lob wedge? Good enough to execute this shot without executing Roger Cleveland, chief of golf club design for Callaway Golf:

A young Tiger Woods used to conduct clinics with his father Earl at which he would hit similar shots over Earl's head, though not from as close range.

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Tiger at Pebble: It's a love/hate thing

Alex Myers — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 05:00:00 GMT

With Tiger Woods skipping the 2013 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, we take a look back at his up-and-down history at the famed course.

Norman's jab at Woods the latest evidence of a strained relationship

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:32:00 GMT

By John Strege

They were reasonably close once, Tiger Woods and Greg Norman, but the chasm that now separates them is too wide to bridge -- and had been long before Norman's most recent knockdown shot at Woods.

"What I'm seeing is that Tiger's really intimidated by Rory," Norman told Robert Lusetich of FoxSports.com.

The notion itself seems folly even beyond Woods' 14 major championships and 74 PGA Tour victories; McIlroy isn't the only player who's outplayed Tiger of late, just the best among them.

Photo by Getty Images

Whatever Norman's reasons for his latest analysis of Woods, it is an extension of a clash of egos that dates to 1996 and effectively ended a relationship that had begun five years earlier, when Woods was 15. Tiger was in Florida for a junior tournament, when an arrangement was made for the two to play golf together at Bay Hill Club in Orlando.

Related: How Tiger's swing has changed

Two years later, Tiger's father Earl, citing how impressed he was with the work Butch Harmon had done with Norman, asked Harmon to begin working with his son.

In 1995, when Woods was playing in the Masters for the first time, he and Norman played practice rounds together on Tuesday and Wednesday. At Augusta National the following year, they played practice rounds together on Monday and Tuesday.

When Woods turned pro at the Greater Milwaukee Open in late summer of 1996, he outlined his schedule for the rest of the year and included Norman's Shark Shootout on it. Shark Shootout representatives, however, said that Woods had not yet been invited, Earl Woods said then. Eventually, Woods was formally invited, but declined the invitation, citing a full schedule that incidentally had him taking off the week of the Shark Shootout (though he and Norman both played the Australian Open the following week).

Related: How My Shot: Greg Norman

There were murmurs from the Woods camp, meanwhile, that Tiger's disillusionment with Norman had began to form a few months earlier when Norman squandered a six-stroke lead through 54 holes of the '96 Masters and lost to Nick Faldo by five. Woods often sought the counsel of the game's elder statesmen, but Norman's collapse somehow rendered him poison. Woods also has an aversion to those hitching a ride on his bandwagon and he left some with the impression that he perceived Norman to be overtly passing himself off as a mentor.

The resentment, whatever the foundation, apparently is mutual. Norman's "Tiger intimidated" pronouncement was only the latest in what has become a series of headline-creating criticisms. One was that Tiger would not win another major championship. Another questioned Fred Couples' choice of Woods over Keegan Bradley for the U.S. Presidents Cup team last year.

Related: Like Tiger, Like Rory

Norman, meanwhile, said he reached out to the Woods camp, offering to counsel Tiger in his bid to reclaim the form that made him the game's most dominant player.

"I've had no response," he said on Golf Channel's "Morning Drive" show a year ago. "We live a half mile from each other. I think it's great he's in the neighborhood. But Tiger's his own individual. He's going to do things his way."

There was never a chance at reconciliation anyway, given Tiger's stranglehold on grudges. Norman's most recent jab, deftly timed on the eve of the Tour Championship, simply amplified the fact.

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Article depicts Tiger ignoring his family members

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:56:00 GMT

Apparently, Tiger Woods isn't very good at keeping up with his family. In fact, by one account, he's ignoring his sick half-brother.

ESPN columnist Rick Reilly's latest story depicts Tiger's estranged relationship with his family, particularly his brother, Kevin, who had to quit his job and is in danger of losing his home while battling multiple sclerosis. His sister, Royce, who was close with Tiger while he was at Stanford (even doing his laundry and cooking meals, according to Reilly), hasn't talked to Tiger since their father passed away.

"I would live in a shack," Royce told author and Golf Digest contributor Tom Callahan for his 2010 book His Father's Son, "literally a shack, if I could have my relationship with my brother back."

Tiger speaks at his Tuesday press conference at Augusta National Golf Club. Photograph by Timothy A. Clary/AFP

Woods shares a father with his three siblings, Earl Jr., Kevin and Royce. Royce, the youngest, is 17 years older than the 14-time major winner. Their mother, Barbara Gary, was married to Earl Woods before his second marriage to Tiger's mom, Kultida.

The last time they even talked to Tiger was at their father's funeral six years ago, Royce says. Calls and messages go unanswered and unreturned. The article depicts his brother, Kevin, as a huge Tiger fan who just wants to talk to his famous brother.

Gary says: "I'm very disappointed in Tiger. Before he got all famous, they were in touch a lot."

Tiger does keep in touch with his niece, Cheyenne Woods, the 2011 ACC champion on the Wake Forest golf team. Earl Jr.'s daughter spent part of her Thanksgiving break with Tiger, according to the article.

"I'd like to [slap] Tiger, wake him up," Earl Jr. says. "I'd like to say, 'Don't come knocking on the door when you need a bone-marrow transplant.' To see this is the response we get? Maybe when you see the world like he does, you don't see what other people are going through. But, seriously? You've got problems with your knee? That's nothing compared to what Kevin is going through. Nothing."

--Stephen Hennessey

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Is Tiger's Achilles tendon his Achilles' heel?

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:58:00 GMT

The Tiger Woods saga took another unexpected turn, this time toward the parking lot from the 12th tee at Doral in Miami. It was an old nemesis that sent him on that route, though not the wildly wayward tee shot that typically would have been the leading suspect.

Moments later, Woods was seen in a Mercedes leaving a tournament sponsored by Cadillac (a metaphor for a career no longer in harmony?). He had left without explanation, though a representative later phoned in a statement from him:

Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

"I felt tightness in my left Achilles warming up this morning, and it continued to get progressively worse. After hitting my tee shot at 12, I decided it was necessary to withdraw. In the past, I may have tried to continue to play, but this time, I decided to do what I thought was necessary."

He was following his late father's advice, which in his effort to regain his equilibrium in his Nicklaus pursuit isn't necessarily a bad thing. Earl Woods taught a young Tiger to listen to his body. Of course, over the years, Woods was accused occasionally of listening too closely, suggesting that he was soft.

Twitter accordingly was rife with speculation, one amateur diagnosis concluding that he had withdrawn with a bruised ego. That he was closer to the parking lot than the lead was not likely to dissuade those doubting the severity of his injury.

Yet by now, it ought to be clear that an injured Woods is not a malingering one. He won the U.S. Open in 2008 on a bum knee that would not allow him to return to competitive golf for seven months. Injuries sustained at the Masters a year ago put him on the shelf for four months, notwithstanding an ill-advised start in the Players Championship, from which he withdrew.

Book Excerpt: No One Tells Tiger Woods What To Do

John Feinstein — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT

One thing I learned from a four-hour conversation: Tiger makes almost all his own calls -- for good and bad. From the new book, "One on One: Behind the Scenes with the Greatest In the Game," reprinted by arrangement with Little, Brown and Company.

Golf Digest Covers From A To Z

GolfDigest.com — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 04:00:00 GMT

An in-depth look at the history of Golf Digest covers

From the Archives: Master Moments

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:00:00 GMT

Highlights from the Masters from Byron Nelson to Tiger Woods

Interview with Tom Callahan

Bob Carney — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 03:16:00 GMT

In November Golf Digest published an excerpt from Tom Callahan's new book, His Father's Son, about Tiger Woods and his late father, Earl. Blogger Geoff Shackelford interviewed Callahan and the exchange, for anyone interested in...