For Tiger and Earl Woods, the apple doesn't
fall far from the tree
By William R. Macklin
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
PHILADELPHIA - Tiger! Tiger! burning bright, like a phenom
in the night.
With all due apologies to William Blake, exactly what was it
that put the fire under Tiger Woods?
What elevated golf's first wunderkind of color from a naturally
gifted would-be champion to a bona fide lion of the links whose
imposing swing and authoritative command of the short game seemed
to rupture the space-time continuum in Augusta on April 13, yielding
Woods' extraordinary victory at the Masters?
Those who know the 21-year-old golfer and his family say his
triumphant rise might be summed up in one word: father.
"Tiger had goals for himself, but his dad had goals for
him, too," says William D. Dickey, president of the National
Minority Golf Foundation. "He was there for his son, and
the results are obvious. If he hadn't been there, who can say
what would have happened?"
But in the short, graceful tone poem that has been the career
of Tiger Woods, what was won through the nurturing of his ever-present
and highly regarded father, Earl, and what was produced by the
hardheaded self-determination of a young golfer with vast talent
and unrelenting drive?
Peter Westbrook wonders.
Possibly the finest fencer the United States has ever produced,
Westbrook, like Woods, has parents of Asian and African-American
heritage. Unlike Woods, Westbrook was not close to his father.
And even though the six-time Olympian credits his Japanese mother
with getting him involved with fencing, he is convinced that it
is the finest of lines separating a father or mother who gently
supports a child's athletic ambitions from a parental pariah who
feeds off a youngster's accomplishments and never knows when to
back off.
"Most of the time that I've seen it, or watched it happen,
it has had a negative effect," said Westbrook. "It makes
the child resent the sport, it makes the child hate the father.
In this particular situation, at least so far, we haven't seen
that resentment. There are just some situations where the father
knows exactly how much to push."
In his moment of victory in Georgia, Woods, the youngest player
ever to wear the green blazer of a Masters champion, expressed
anything but resentment.
He strolled from the course and like an ingot of gold, melted
into Earl's waiting arms. Woods held his mother, Kutilda, too,
finally folding both parents into his expansive reach. But first
came his dad.
The relationship between son and father, by all accounts a
thing of high ambitions and painstaking encouragement, has become
a central element of the swelling mythos surrounding Woods.
There are tales of how Earl, a retired Army lieutenant and
onetime college baseball player, practiced his golf swing while
his young son looked on - from his high chair. Last year, when
Tiger shattered the course record at the Cypress, Calif., country
club where he'd played as a boy, his favorite golf partner, and
by some accounts his closest friend, Earl, was there to share
the victory cup.
"His father pretty much put a golf club into his hands
almost from the age of 3," says Keith McDuff, a golf pro
at the Cypress Country Club who has followed Woods' development
for years. "His father was a great role model. He instilled
a lot of positive values in Tiger. He taught him that you get
out of life what you put into it - on the course and off."
For those who have followed Tiger Woods' career, first as the
most impressive junior player and now as the Masters champion
who won by the greatest margin in the history of the tournament,
what has mattered most about him is what happened on the course.
The pre-schooler whose dad took him on TV to show off his stroke
was passionately prepared for professional golf.
Now he must confront the double-barreled blast of personal
celebrity, which may ultimately prove the truest test of Earl
Woods' parental mettle, says Joel H. Fish, a sports psychologist
and director of the Center for Sports Psychology in Philadelphia.
"If you produce a kid who is one-dimensional, you are
asking for trouble further down the road," said Fish. "We
have every reason to believe, as of April 15, that dad and mom
produced a happy, healthy kid. But the jury is still out. He is
heading into unknown territory. In 1997, can someone have that
kind of hero status without tripping or being knocked off the
pedestal? It's just beginning for him now. Everything else has
been preparation."
It was during this time of preparation that Earl Woods played
such a critical role, for which his son appears truly grateful.
It's unlikely, says Fish, that his game-ending embrace and
Woods' repeated praise for his father are for show.
"A son isn't always expressive in clearly articulating
how important a parent is," says Fish. "I would have
to take my cue from him and say that, clearly, how he hugged his
dad after winning the tournament, they are very close."
So close that Earl Woods may have known instinctively how to
give his son the emotional tools he needed to become a champion,
says Tiger's high school golf coach.
"There was no pushing. Zero," says Don Crosby, Woods'
coach at Western High School in Anaheim, Calif. "I had a
lot of people say when Tiger came to school that he was going
to burn out because his father was pushing him. That never happened
because there was no pushing. If there was any pushing, it was
Tiger pushing himself."
While Earl Woods ponied up greens fees, popped for clubs, bags
and attire, and let his son indulge his love of golf history with
an almost endless stream of videotapes showing famous matches,
Tiger drove himself harder than any stage mother drives a reluctant
starlet.
And that, as much as his father's involvement, is what turned
Tiger Woods into Tiger Woods, insists Crosby.
"Tiger would go out to the club and hit balls for three
hours," Crosby says. "I don't know anybody 15 years
old who would do that, except maybe Jack Nicklaus. In the end
there is no gimmick. If you hit 10,000 balls you're going to get
good at the game."
But as good as Tiger Woods?
Earl Woods may have known when not to push, but it's also clear
that he knew when to take action. When Tiger fell into a funk
over his play, it was Earl who sought a solution, says golf pro
McDuff.
"He was struggling with his putting, didn't think he could
make key puts," McDuff says. "His father suggested he
go through hypnotism."
Even if Earl Woods managed to find the parental sweet spot
- that place in which all his aspirations for his child joined
with good sense and compassion to develop what may be the finest
golf talent ever, sports psychologist Fish warns that the chances
were just as good that he'd miss the mark altogether.
Parenting, especially of an athletically gifted child, is no
game for duffers, he says.
"For every Tiger Woods, there are 999 kids who aren't
going to get those results, so we have to take the lead from the
child," says Fish. "We cannot impose our will or expectations
on our children."
(c) 1997, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Visit Philadelphia Online, the Inquirer's World Wide Web site,
at http://www.phillynews.com/
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