Tuesday, July 18, 2000
Jordan's heir? All we really know about
Tiger Woods is very little
By Dana Pennett O'Neil
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
PHILADELPHIA — He remembers a toddling little boy who liked
video games and baseball and football and his bike. He loved to
play with his friends and be with his parents.
He was a normal little boy.
Except when he stepped on a golf course. Then, there was nothing
normal about Tiger Woods.
“He was just a normal kid,” said Rudy Duran, Woods'
golf coach from the time he was 4 until he was 10, “except
that he also happened to be the best golfer in the world. Yes,
even then.”
Back then, people might have dismissed Duran's assessment as pure
hyperbole. Not anymore. Woods - who heads to St. Andrews, Scotland,
this week for the British Open - is seeking at the tender age
of 24 to become only the fifth golfer to win all four majors.
These days, few will dispute that he is the best golfer in the
world.
And in the course of his four-year professional career, he has
become so familiar. He smiles at us from the covers of Golf Digest
and People and Sports Illustrated and GQ and ESPN, the Magazine.
He fills up our television hours and our newspaper pages.
“It's interesting,” Woods told Sports Illustrated. “People
know more about my life than I do.”
Or at least we think we do. The truth is, we know nothing about
him. He has mastered the art of saying a lot without revealing
anything, following the path first paved by Michael Jordan. We
knew that Jordan was close with his father, James. We know Woods
is close with his father, Earl. We know all about Jordan's glory
years at North Carolina. We know about Woods' achievements at
Stanford. We know next to nothing about Jordan's wife, Juanita,
and know just as little about Woods' girlfriend, Joanna Jagoda.
Woods is in a self-induced bubble, a man who has somehow engaged
the entire world as his fan without really letting the public
get too close.
Yet, we crave information about him. The appetite for Tiger tidbits
is insatiable, a quest for details that we'll likely never know.
It is not enough to know what he carries in his golf bag. We concede
the golf information, that he will be in — or win —
every tournament he enters, that he can drive and chip and putt
like no one else. We want more. What he eats, where he goes. Pepsi
or Coke? Boxers or briefs? Standard or automatic?
He is Princess Diana, the Backstreet Boys and Tom Cruise all wrapped
into one.
He is, in other words, the perfect heir to inherit the dynasty
Jordan built.
“Everyone was looking for the next Michael and they were
always looking on the basketball court,” Nike chairman Phil
Knight once said. “He was walking down the fairway.”
Back when Arnold Palmer was the best golfer in the world, he was
a man of the people, chatting with fans in the gallery, spending
time with sports writers in the locker room long after the official
press conferences were over. Jack Nicklaus went so far as to actually
learn the names of the reporters he met.
As for Woods, it is easier to get an audience with the pope than
a one-on-one interview. He simply doesn't do them. In press conferences,
he is polite, even amusing at times. But when the interviews are
over, they are over.
Those closest to him, those who could share the funny anecdotes
and offer a glimpse into Tiger the man, are equally tight-lipped,
enveloped by a cone of silence that is bound by a simple rule:
if you talk, then say goodbye to that ticket into the inner circle.
The litany of unanswered phone messages, polite refusals for this
story alone indicate just how tough it is to get close to Woods.
A message for Earl Woods left at the Tiger Woods Foundation was
not returned. His swing coach, Butch Harmon, did not respond to
messages left for him at his Las Vegas golf school. Joanna Jagoda
does not, under any circumstances, give interviews. Nor does his
caddie, Steve Williams. A request from the Philadelphia Daily
News to Jerry Chang, Woods' college roommate and the man for whom
Woods caddied last month immediately following his U.S. Open win,
politely, but firmly, refused via e-mail. “Thanks of thinking
of me for your story,” he wrote. “However, I try not
to get involved in Tiger's affairs — appearances, interviews,
etc.”
So instead, you are left to string together the pieces, to talk
to people who knew him when, who were once in the inner circle,
but whom Woods has outgrown as a golfer.
And the picture that emerges? Well, if it were any other 24-year-old
in the world, you'd have to think it was rather dull. As atypical
as Woods' life is, he is rather typical.
“He's just a great guy,” said Wally Goodwin, Woods'
golf coach at Stanford. “He's just a nice, levelheaded kid.”
Woods grew up in Cypress, Calif., a southeastern suburb of Los
Angeles, with his parents, Earl and Kultida (known as Tida). He
was a retired Green Beret, she was a native of Thailand. Their
only son — though Earl has three children from a first marriage
— they nicknamed after a Vietnamese soldier Earl met while
serving, Col. Vuong Dang Phong, whom Earl called “Tiger.”
Only years later did the family learn that just eight months after
Tiger was born, Phong died in a political re-education camp. Phong's
wife, Lythi Bich Van, lives in Tacoma, Wash., and until Golf Digest
reporter Tom Callahan learned of Phong and subsequently his wife,
Van had never heard of Tiger Woods. Callahan arranged an emotional
reunion between the families in 1997.
Woods' early golf exploits are the tall tales for our ages, too
impossible to believe. At 2, he outputted Bob Hope on “The
Mike Douglas Show,” and at 3, shot a 48 on nine holes. By
5, he was featured in Golf Digest.
Hard to believe, yes. But also true, Duran insists.
“He didn't beat me, but only because I could hit it farther,”
he said. “But he played better relative to his personal par.
If I had a par 72 and he had a par 90, he was perfect, perfect,
perfect every time. From the minute I saw him, he was a better
player than I'd ever be. Pound for pound, he was the best golfer
I'd ever seen. By the time he was 5, he was like a shrunken touring
pro.”
Some say that's because he didn't have a choice, that Earl Woods
wanted a professional golfer, not necessarily a son. But Duran
insists that ambition never came at Tiger's expense.
Duran spent many an evening at the Woods' home, sharing dinners
and conversations about everything and anything. Tiger talked
about football and basketball; he played in the park with his
buddies. If he didn't want to play golf one day, he didn't play.
Those days were few and far between only because the boy, not
the father, never wanted to be away from the golf course.
“I've had some junior golfers just recently whose parents
are far more obsessive than Tiger's,” Duran said. “I'd
say his were average. If Tiger didn't want to play, there was
never a second word. Nowadays, kids hear about it for hours.”
Duran doesn't see as much of Woods these days. He does, however,
keep in touch with Earl and Tida and is always quick to compliment
them, not on the golfer they raised, but the young man.
“They did a great job with him,” Duran said. “From
what I've seen of him recently, he hasn't changed a bit and that's
impressive. In the fish bowl that he lives in, I know I'd be a
little edgy, but he's handling it so well and that's because of
his parents. In golf, he's a prodigy, like Mozart at the piano.
But away from it, he's just a normal person.”
Wally Goodwin, who coached Woods at Stanford on the brink of Tigermania,
agrees. He never fretted that he was getting a world-class pain
in the behind, that Woods' talent was outdone only by an inflated
ego.
And he wasn't disappointed. The Tiger Woods that Goodwin remembers
was a typical college kid, a prankster who was always “trying
to play jokes on me, kind of a cat-and-mouse thing.”
Former teammate Eri Crum once recalled: “We always had a
great time on the driving range. There was a dormitory called
the Suites and Woods' big trick was to pull out his driver and
hit big slices over the Suites and back onto the driving range.”
When he wasn't on the course or in class, Woods could be found
in the football office, talking pigskin with then head coach Bill
Walsh.
“I've never seen an athlete be able to go from having a great
time, having fun in life and then go out and knock them dead,”
Goodwin said. “He can turn that intensity on and off so easily.
I used to worry about his emotions, whether he could handle all
of the attention, but I've seen lately that he's leveled off a
little. I see him smile a lot more.”
Tiger Woods still plays computer games, but he is no longer just
a computer-game fan.
He is a computer game.
When he needs a break from Mortal Kombat, a personal favorite,
he can pick up Tiger Woods PGA 2000 and in the ultimate virtual
reality, play against himself.
This is what fame does to a person. It takes everyday interests
and blows them into comic proportions. When you are rich - Woods
has more than $45 million in endorsements, $15 million in career
winnings and the potential, according to ESPN, The Magazine to
be worth $6 billion someday - you don't have to give up the toys
of your youth. They just get bigger.
So Woods owns a Cessna jet. Like other twentysomethings, he has
his own bachelor pad. He just happens to have two - a condo in
a pricey Manhattan Beach enclave and a home in Isleworth, the
tony Orlando, Fla., gated community, where the mailboxes read
like a who's who in sports. Mark O'Meara is a neighbor. Ken Griffey
Jr. is a pal down the street.
Like all adults too young to sense their mortality, he has a fearlessness
and so, like many, he has bungee-jumped. But unlike most, he also
has hopped in an F-16 fighter plane for a zero-gravity free fall
in Las Vegas.
Just like the rest of us, he has wacky quirks and offbeat talents.
Where we might be able to rub our stomachs and pat our heads,
Woods can bounce a golf ball on the convex of his pitching wedge.
Ours, of course, remain stupid party tricks. His is a Nike commercial.
And, by the way, he suffers from hay fever.
Pretty generic stuff for a name-brand kind of guy. Perhaps that
is why we find Woods so curious. He is not a giant, a 6-6 Michael
Jordan able to leap from halfcourt to the hoop. He is not a behemoth
on skates, a la Eric Lindros, or a 250-pound linebacker who can
tote his bulky frame 100 yards at lightning speed.
Let's face it, he's a golfer, someone the weekend duffer can relate
to. We cannot play on the United Center court or on the First
Union Center ice. We can play Pebble Beach and Pinehurst No. 2.
We can even step to the tee, the exact same spot where he once
stood, smile to our friends and repeat that old Nike mantra, “I
am Tiger Woods.”
Then, of course, we hit a tee shot and that is where the comparisons
end.
And that is why we are so enamored, so nosy about this man, why
twice he was named one of People magazine's “Most Intriguing
People.” We may share a lot in common with Tiger Woods, but
the big picture we cannot even comprehend. He is something most
of us will never be - world famous, fabulously wealthy and supremely
talented.
Which explains why this seemingly Ordinary Joe renders 117,524
sites when “Tiger Woods” is plugged into a Lycos search;
why, on eBay, bidding for a Tiger Woods' rookie card begins at
$2,300 and a replica Tiger Woods Masters putter, No. 109 of 270
made, opens up at $5,000; why, a London-born billionaire shelled
out $2.1 million in a charity auction for a round of golf with
Woods; and another bidder at the same auction paid $1.5 million
for a Woods-autographed flag from Pebble Beach.
“It's like being with Elvis,” said former “Beverly
Hills 90210” star Luke Perry, at an opening at one of the
All-Star Sports Cafe, in which Perry, Woods, Griffey and women's
tennis star Monica Seles have invested. “No, it was more
like being with Moses.”
And since when did we care about a golfer's love life? Who's married
to Colin Montgomerie? Is Colin Montgomerie even married? Who knows?
Does anyone care?
Yet, we find Woods' romances as interesting as Elizabeth Taylor's.
In 1997, the National Enquirer put a photo of Woods on its cover
dancing with a blonde, headlined, “Tiger's Wild Night with
Topless Dancer,” and later ran an “Inside Tiger Woods'
Love Life,” an account of his breakup with his high school
- yes, high school - girlfriend.
Since then, he's been rumored to have dated supermodel Tyra Banks,
LPGA star Kelli Kuehne and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York
. . . simultaneously.
There is no room for such idle gossip now. Woods and Jagoda have
been item since being introduced by friends three years ago.
Instead, there are rumors. At last year's British Open, the Mirror,
of London, reported the two were engaged. The story was picked
up by the New York Post and grew such long legs that Woods was
forced to flatly deny it.
Somewhere, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are smiling.
It is on the golf course, it truly hits home that Tiger Woods'
life is not like the rest of ours. Not just because of his game,
but because of what happens when he pulls into a parking lot.
Golf now has what is commonly referred to as “The Tiger Effect.”
It includes everything from attendance to security and for some
smaller tournaments, means the difference between success and
failure. If Woods is in the field, everything is a guarantee.
If he's not, nothing is assured.
And for those tournaments who get Tiger? Well, there's good and
there's bad. There are stampedes for tickets, galleries packed
to the rafters and huge media exposure.
There is also 20 times the work. Because of Woods, the PGA hired
Joe Corless, a former FBI agent, to develop a security plan for
each tour stop that Woods makes. Because of Woods, there are wider
roped-off areas to lead players from greens to tees, barricade
fencing so players can leave the course and local security people
to escort golfers into the clubhouse.
“From my perspective, the thing that's also very important
and often gets forgotten is there are 132 players who show up
here, dozens and dozens of fabulous players, and you have to be
mindful to make sure they all feel welcomed and there is no special
treatment,” said Steve Matteucci, tournament director at
the Phoenix Open. “It's a real challenge to be evenhanded.
It's so easy to fall into that trap of only worrying about Tiger.
Can you imagine? You ignore David Duval because Tiger Woods is
in your tournament?”
This “Tiger Effect” does not necessarily endear Woods
to his fellow golfers. Outside of O'Meara and college teammate
Notah Begay, he has few true friends on the Tour. It is not necessarily
his fault, but certainly understandable from the other players.
Tigermania can get a little taxing.
In 1997, after he won the Masters and the Byron Nelson Classic,
Woods entered the MasterCard Colonial. Justin Leonard led after
the first round, but all of the questions were about Woods. “I
just shot a 63 and you're asking me about Tiger Woods?” Leonard
fired back.
Leonard's point was well-taken . . . until Woods bested him by
nine shots over the next three days.
“I remember early on we had an intimate dinner, just the
players and a few other people,” Matteucci said. “Tiger
was off to the side by himself. There was resentment because of
the huge contract he had signed with Nike and he hadn't proved
himself yet. Things have changed because he's demonstrated his
ability. There's a real respect and admiration for him now, whereas
at first some of the players were a little skeptical.”
The bad news for Woods, who often laments that too many people
want a piece of him, is that it will only get worse. As scary
as it sounds considering his success, he is just beginning his
professional career. We have years and years of Tigermania ahead
of us.
Like basketball was to Jordan, so, too, will golf become to Woods.
We all knew that Jordan's talents were once-in-a-lifetime, superhuman
and head and shoulders above everyone else in the NBA. It will
be the same for Woods.
We will watch him play and marvel and awe at his talent.
And we will still want more.
“I knew he'd be a world-class golfer. That hasn't surprised
me at all,” said Duran, his youth coach. “I never expected
the general population to make him so famous. I never imagined
people would care so much about who he is, not just his golf.
He was born at the right time. Twenty years ago, no one would
have cared.”
(c) 2000, Philadelphia Daily News.
Visit Philadelphia Online, the World Wide Web site of the Philadelphia
Daily News, at http://www.philly.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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