The Matter with Tiger Woods

Could it get any worse for Tiger Woods? Just one week after missing the cut, badly, at the Quail Hollow Championship, Tiger Woods was showing at least a few signs of life, heading into the weekend at -3 in The Players Championship. After carding a 1-under 71 on Saturday, Woods withdrew after just seven holes on Sunday, citing a neck injury that's been bothering him since before the Masters. (Image: Cover of Tiger: The Real Story, by Steve Helling)
     "I've been playing with a bad neck for quite a while," Woods said. "They want me to go get a picture [MRI] on it next week. I might have a bulging disk."
     No word thus far on how serious the injury might be, or whether it's related to the world's #1 ranked golfer's now-infamous Thanksgiving night joy-ride. But speculation is likely to run wild.
     And this comes on the heels of a new unauthorized biography by a reporter for People magazine. And a National Enquirer report that Woods 'fessed up to sleeping with as many as 120 different women while married to Elin. And widely circulating rumors that Elin and the kids have high-tailed it to Sweden, with a divorce filing imminent. No matter what you think of Woods and his self-made mess, it's hard not to feel at least a little bit sorry for him.
     What fascinates me most about L'affaire Tiger Woods is looking back in time for clues about whether we might have been able to see this all coming. One of the things that's so unusual about his historic rise is the way he had been groomed since he could walk to become the greatest golfer in the world – or even history – and yet seemed to come out of it all more or less OK. Like child stars gone bad, these things have a way of not working out very well. Just ask former USC quarterback Todd Marinovich.
      But Woods had seemed to have weathered all that. He emerged from adolescence not only as the #1 golfer in the world, but also, or so it seemed, so ... well-adjusted.
     Where did he go wrong?
     I dunno. And does it even matter? My only conclusion is that spending your life chasing after the world's adulation and glory is ultimately a fruitless task. "Everything is meaningless," once wrote the world's richest, most successful man.
     But such a well-documented life leaves a long paper trail. What follows is a list of links to and short excerpts from articles about Tiger Woods from various stages of his career. Many of them are quite fascinating when read with the inevitable 20-20 hindsight. Read them as you see fit and draw your own conclusions if you wish. Just don't think you'll be getting any closer to the real truth about Tiger Woods than anybody else who tries.

Rick Reilly, Sports Illustrated, "Goodness Gracious, He's a Great Ball of Fire," 1995:

When the boy was six, he asked his parents for the subliminal tape. In the parents' plan to raise the greatest golfer who ever lived, the boy's mind had to be trained. The tape was all rippling brooks and airy flutes on top and chest-thumpers underneath: MY DECISIONS ARE STRONG! I DO IT ALL WITH MY HEART!

Sports Illustrated, "The Chosen One," 1996:

[Earl Woods] said, "Please forgive me...but sometimes I get very emotional...when I talk about my son.... My heart...fills with so...much...joy...when I realize...that this young man...is going to be able...to help so many people.... He will transcend this game...and bring to the world...a humanitarianism...which has never been known before. The world will be a better place to live in...by virtue of his existence...and his presence.... I acknowledge only a small part in that...in that I know that I was personally selected by God himself...to nurture this young man...and bring him to the point where he can make his contribution to humanity.... This is my treasure.... Please accept it...and use it wisely.... Thank you."

 GQ, "The Man. Amen." 1997:

It is an interesting question, one that was made sharper when Tiger looked at me and said, "Hey, you can't write this."

      "Too late," I told him, and I was dead serious, but everybody laughed because everybody knows there's no place in the gospel of Tiger for these sorts of jokes. And Tiger gave the photographer his hour, and we were back in the car with Vincent and heading back toward Tiger's mother's house. "Well, what did you think of the shoot?" Tiger asks, yawning, because being ferried by a limousine and being handled by beautiful women and being photographed for a magazine cover that will get him laid 296 times in the next year, if he so chooses, can be very exhausting work. "The key to it," he says, "is to give them a time and to stick to it. If I say I'm there for an hour, I'm there, on time, for an hour. If they ask for me, I say, 'Hell, f--- no.' And I'm out of there.

Esquire, "The Passion of Tiger Woods" 2003:

"He's held up to a standard that's almost beyond ridiculous," said Bob Wood, president of Nike Golf. "Nobody should feel sorry for Tiger, but he's exposed at a level that's really extraordinary. Anytime I'm with him, it's like being with Elvis. The crush, the pressure, is unbelievable."

Esquire, "Where to Find the Salvation of Tiger Woods," 2009 (follow-up to article above):

And yet I haven't been able to celebrate his bad fortune, because, earlier this year — on Mother's Day, in fact — my brother was caught in the same kind of web. His wife nabbed him cheating when she saw his loving text messages to a (much younger) colleague, of all the sordid clichés. I've watched firsthand the kinds of hysterical scenes that played out in Woods's driveway; I've stood on the edge of those impact craters. My brother's infidelity has torn our entire family apart.

Golf Digest, "What Happened?" 2010:

I first met Tiger in 1990 in the parking lot at Coto de Caza, a Southern California course not far from his family home. I was doing a profile for Golf Digest on Woods, then a 14-year-old prodigy, who in short order would win three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateurs. He arrived with his father, whom I had spoken with on the phone. Earl was friendly and informal. He called me "Stud," which seemed odd on several levels, but not after I got used to his chauvinistic Army humor. After shaking hands, Tiger hung back, barely saying a word.

UPDATE: "Could it get any worse for Tiger Woods?" Since I originally posed that largely rhetorical question, Tiger's swing coach, Hank Haney, has resigned, and now his infamous Canadian knee doctor, Anthony Galea, has been officially charged with illegally treating pro football players in the U.S. with unapproved drugs. Sounds like it's getting worse.