loved golf and he loved the work of it. So he got better and better.
By the time he was three, he was beating ten-year-olds. By eleven
years old, he could beat his father regularly on eighteen-hole courses.
By seventh grade, he was being recruited by Stanford. At Stanford,
where he spent two years, Tiger was an All-American and the
number one player in the country. By the time he went pro at twenty,
it was already obvious that he might become the greatest golfer who
ever lived. The richest too. His first contracts with Nike and Titleist
were worth a combined $60 million.
Tiger Woods’s first decade and a half as a pro stand as possibly
the most dominant reign ever, in any sport. He won everything that
could be won. Fourteen majors, 140 tournaments. He was ranked the
number one golfer in the world for 281 consecutive weeks. He won
more than $115 million in PGA Tour winnings. He won on every
continent except Antarctica.
There were, for those who were looking, signs of sickness: the
thrown clubs after a bad hole—and the lack of concern for the fans
this occasionally imperiled. The way he’d broken up with his
longtime high school girlfriend by packing her suitcase and sending
it to her parents’ hotel room with a letter. The way he responded
when Steve Scott saved him from accidentally scratching in their epic
head-to-head match, not even thanking him, not even acknowledging
the incredible sportsmanship of it—treating it like the weakness of
inferior prey.* The way he’d left his college golf team to go pro
without even saying goodbye to his teammates, the way after he
finished eating with family or friends he’d simply get up and leave
without saying a word. The way he could just cut people out of his
life.
Woods’s golf coach Hank Haney would say that over time Tiger
began to understand that “anyone who was brought into his world
was lucky and would be playing by his rules.” This was what he had
been taught by his parents, who raised him both as a kind of prince
and a prisoner in a psychological experiment. Fame and wealth only
added to this. “I felt I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to
enjoy all the temptations around me,” Tiger would say later. “I felt I
was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn’t have to go far to
find them.”
barry
(Barry)
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