The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods (2 page)

Then again, at this Masters, Tiger has already accomplished a great deal. In the first tournament he’s played in five months—a period in which he’s suffered public humiliation, the painful, regimented program designed to look into a psyche he never before questioned, the ordeal of his televised February 19 public apology, which was so anticipated that it preempted network programming, and the certainty that his wife will soon file for divorce—he’s battled furiously and played amazingly well. He’s made more mistakes than usual but nearly offset them with short bursts of truly spectacular golf. By the end of the tournament, he will have made a total of 17 birdies and a record four eagles in 72 holes, a 25-under-par barrage that will exceed his sub-par holes in 1997, when he won by 12 and set the tournament record on a much shorter golf course. Considering where he was a few weeks ago, I consider having a part in where he is my best job of short-term coaching ever.

In my mind, Tiger is playing with house money. As a person who has lost so much, he should be feeling that this final round presents him with everything to gain. But as I watch him rake another ball out of the pile without looking up, there’s zero indication he sees things that way. He hasn’t been going through our practice progression of the Nine Shots—in which he hits the nine possible ball flights with each club—in a regimented way. Somehow, his devotion to excellence, the quality that most identifies him to the world, is missing.

But what I’ve learned at close quarters is that excellence, year after year, is exhausting. Late at night, I’ve been wondering if the 2010 Masters would mark the moment Tiger didn’t want to be Tiger Woods anymore. It’s not something I’ve said to many people, because it sounds so absurd, but I’ve often thought, even when Tiger’s game was at its peak, that because of insane expectations that even he can’t fulfill, there is no harder person to be in the world than Tiger Woods.

I look over at Steve Williams, standing a few feet away next to Tiger’s bag. He’s carried it for 13 major-championship victories since 1999, which, without even counting his long and very successful stints with Greg Norman and Raymond Floyd, make him the greatest caddie in history. He’s been in my corner from the beginning, in part because he’d been in favor of Tiger leaving his former swing coach Butch Harmon and wanted Butch’s successor to do well. Steve has his hard-ass game face on and hasn’t said a word, but we’re brothers in arms, and when our eyes meet, so do our thoughts.

What is going on? Scandal or no scandal, aren’t these the moments Tiger has always said he worked for? Lived for? The times when his ability to hyperfocus and be mentally bulletproof give him his most important advantage over the competition? The times he’s always said he relishes the most?

But Tiger, tellingly, is not relishing this. His attitude is straight-up horrible. Now, at the moment of truth, it’s a defining signal.

I doubt anyone has a greater appreciation for how great Tiger is than I do. He’s a genius in the most exacting sport there is—physically, technically, mentally, emotionally. Nicklaus might have the greatest overall record, but no one has ever played golf as well as Tiger Woods, and no one has ever been better than his competition by a wider margin. He’s the greatest.

But life is about loss. With the cold part of my mind that keeps any sadness momentarily walled off, I make the call. He’s become less of a golfer, and he’s never going to be the same again.

Tiger Woods is sullen the first time I meet him. Maybe even a little rude. But also, without a doubt, fascinating.

It’s May 1993, and Tiger is a 17-year-old amateur who has come to Dallas to play in the PGA Tour’s Byron Nelson Classic on a sponsor’s exemption. He and his father, Earl, are staying in the home of Ernie and Pam Kuehne, whose three kids—Trip, Hank, and Kelli—are all successful junior golfers I teach. Ernie, Hank, and Kelli have brought Tiger and Earl to the Hank Haney Golf Ranch—it’s a former horse farm with converted barns and stables—in the North Dallas suburb of McKinney to show them where they practice and introduce them to the coach who helps them with their games.

I’m giving a lesson when I see the five of them appear from behind one of the barns. I think,
Wow, that’s Tiger Woods!
Like everyone in golf, I’ve heard a lot about Tiger and am excited to see him in the flesh. More than any junior golfer ever, he’s famous. He’s won his age group at the Optimist Junior World tournament almost every year since he was eight. He’s won the U.S. Junior Amateur twice, and in a few months he’ll make it three in a row. No male player has ever done those things.

I take a break to walk over and say hello. Tiger is gangly from a recent growth spurt, about six feet but weighing less than 150 pounds, and the bagginess of what has to be an XL-size golf shirt only accentuates his lankiness. But skinny as he is, he looks golf strong. His is a body built for clubhead speed.

I tell Tiger what a pleasure it is to meet him, and congratulate him on his accomplishments. He seems sleepy, and when I put out my hand, he takes it weakly. It reminds me of the light grip you get from older touring pros who believe a regular shake might mess up their touch. I notice that Tiger’s hand seems kind of delicate, the fingers long and thin.

I greet Earl and compliment him on the job he’s done with his son. Based on what I’ve read, I’m expecting a talker, but Earl is only slightly more responsive than Tiger.

Ernie, an extroverted bear of a man, fills the silence, but the whole encounter is a little strained. My first thought is that there’s a natural reason for the wariness. Tiger is a black kid in a white sport, visiting a Southern state, where he’s not wrong to assume that a lot of people who’d rather not see him rise to the top of the game are going to be nice to his face. I remember reading his account of “the look” he’s gotten at some country clubs, and how he’s been schooled by his dad on the subtle forms of racial prejudice.

My second thought is that this slouching, bored teenager projects a powerful presence. I’d heard about Tiger’s focus, his intensity, and his will, and in a strange way he’s demonstrating it all with his insolence. I’m an adult, a trusted friend of his hosts, and own the establishment he’s visiting, but he doesn’t care enough to engage me in the least, and it makes the vibe uncomfortable. Most young people—most people,
period
—would be able to stand the awkwardness for only so long before saying something. Tiger doesn’t.

I don’t take it personally. Instead, I think,
I’m not sure what all this is about, but I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with why he always wins
. I also remember thinking that, while there was a good possibility Tiger was going to be out on the tour and that I’d be around him again, I probably was never going to be friends with him.

It becomes clear that the group is just passing through, so Tiger won’t be hitting balls. I’m a little disappointed, because as a coach, I would value the opportunity to ask Earl about how he’s guided his son. I don’t really feel a great need to watch Tiger swing. I’ve seen enough on television to know he’s got a beautiful action, graceful and impossibly fast, and I know he can hit it a mile. But honestly, a lot of junior prodigies can do those things. I’m sure Tiger isn’t as long as Hank Kuehne, who is the same age and will soon be the biggest hitter in the entire game. And to this day I’ve never seen a junior golfer who swung better or hit the ball as well as Trip Kuehne, whom I’ve been teaching since he was 11. But the swing of any kid at 17, no matter how impressive to the eye, is still in the embryonic stage as measured against what it must evolve into for a competitive career.

The things that make the difference in whether a young player progresses are intangibles: toughness, work ethic, self-confidence, desire, a sense of how to score, and most of all, true passion for the game. Of the Kuehne siblings, it’s five-foot-three Kelli—who will go on to win a U.S. Girls’ Junior, two U.S. Amateurs, a British Ladies Amateur, and an LPGA event—who possesses these qualities to the greatest degree. Hank will win the 1998 U.S. Amateur but, mostly due to a back injury, will have limited success on the PGA Tour, and Trip will lose an incredible U.S. Amateur final to Tiger in 1994, resist turning pro, and finally win a USGA title at the 2008 Mid-Amateur. The Kuehne boys have as much physical talent as Tiger. On meeting Tiger, though, I know in an instant—in that kind of flash Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book
Blink
—that he possesses the right intangibles to the highest degree.

Our chat lasts only about five minutes, and if not for Ernie, it would have been shorter. But it’s enough. As I walk away, I mentally file Tiger under “ultimate case study.” And I know I’ll be studying him for a long time.

I saw Tiger quite a bit over the next few years. I became the golf coach at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 1994, the same year Tiger entered Stanford. Whenever our teams were at a tournament, I’d run into him and show interest in his progress. Having sized me up in Dallas, he became friendlier, though still guarded. We might kibitz about the Kuehnes, but mostly it was me encouraging and complimenting and him nodding his thanks.

When I had the chance, I’d watch him from afar, either on the practice range or on the course. Although he was still pretty thin, I could see he was both growing into his body and putting on some weight-room muscle, and under his teacher, Butch Harmon, his swing was becoming less willowy and more stable.

By his sophomore year, Tiger had won two U.S. Amateurs and was on his way to another unprecedented three-peat. I kept telling Mark O’Meara, my longtime student and a multiple winner on the PGA Tour, about how incredibly good this kid was. Mark was skeptical, as touring pros tend to be about prodigies. He’d point out that Tiger had never had a high finish in the several PGA Tour events in which he’d received a sponsor’s exemption. Most pros were stars in childhood, and they all remember the kid who was better than they were who was projected for professional stardom but never made it. Mark would mention Doug Clarke, who beat the heck out of him, John Cook, and everyone else around Southern California growing up, but who flamed out. Pros distrust early success.

There are fewer sure things in golf than any other sport. Even as good as the Kuehne boys turned out to be, neither fulfilled his promise in golf. But there was something very different about Tiger that made me sure he’d continue to be historic.

He definitely had a sense of mission, and you couldn’t help thinking that it had something to do with belonging to a minority. No black player had come out and stuck as a regular on the PGA Tour since the late 1970s, and Tiger knew he was carrying a lot of hopes on his shoulders. At the same time, I already had the sense that he wasn’t going to let societal pressures become extra baggage. The way he’d blocked me out at our first meeting told me he’d be able to build a wall around his game. As I observed him, I began to see him as a lone wolf. Nobody else in golf was like him: the son of an African American father who was a career soldier and an Asian mother who was a devout Buddhist, both of whom had poured all they had into their only child together. They’d raised an outsider and sent him on a singular journey.

The X factor was Earl Woods. Skeptics thought Earl wasn’t doing Tiger any favors by predicting Tiger’s future importance to sports and society. But I didn’t sense in Tiger the resentment and rebellion I often saw in kids with pushy fathers. He and Earl were clearly really close. Earl was Tiger’s rock and the source of his confidence.

Tiger shared his dad’s grandiose vision. I could tell by the way he talked about himself after his victories. In 1996, in his last year at Stanford, Tiger won the NCAA individual championship at the Honors Course in Tennessee. It was an extremely difficult Pete Dye layout, but Tiger shot 69-67-69 the first three days to take a nine-stroke lead with one round to go. He struggled on the final day to shoot 80, but the course was so hard, he still won by four strokes. He looked as though he could blow it after a triple bogey on the ninth hole followed by four bogeys, but he kept his poise and finished it off. I told Mark that if the U.S. Open had been played that week at the Honors Course, Tiger would have definitely led after three rounds and might well have found a way to win it. I remember reading Tiger’s quote afterward: “People will never know how much it took out of me,” he said. Tiger saw himself—at least as a golfer—as doing and feeling things on a scale other people just couldn’t understand.

Later that year,
Golf Digest
published a piece asking leading teachers how they thought Tiger would do in his first year as a pro. Most offered some variation of him keeping his tour card, perhaps garnering a victory. I said that in his first full year Tiger would be the leading money winner.

Tiger noticed my comment. He mentioned it the next time I saw him, again when he actually became the leading money winner in his first full season, and he brought it up a few more times over the years. I realized that while Tiger seemed to be ignoring things, he was actually paying close attention: watching, weighing, and figuring out whom he could trust. I know that quote had something to do with his eventually picking me to coach him.