Tiger’s Tale Takes A Terrible Turn

After A Painful Rehabilitation, The Real Work Begins

The online conclusion-jumping came swiftly and mercilessly in the hours after the world learned of Tiger Woods’ horrible car accident in the Palos Verdes hills on Tuesday morning.

He’s on drugs again. He can’t get his act together. He was up all night and fell asleep at the wheel. He’s a basket case.

“Another drive in the rough,” some joker captioned a Facebook photo, doctored to show the ruined Gemini SUV on a sunny tee box, a hole-in-one prize gone horribly, tragically, and, apparently for this particular knucklehead, hilariously wrong. I couldn’t read more than a few snide and cruel comments on a Washington Post comment feed before bailing in disgust.

Tiger has deserved being called out for his behavior over the years, I’ve gone down that road myself, but he deserves nothing like this. It’s simply out of bounds, especially with most facts of what caused the accident still unknown. Law enforcement officers and emergency medical technicians who treated him at the scene say there was no indication of impairment, and besides, the accident happened just after 7 a.m., on a stretch of downhill suburban street notorious for speeding and collisions. We know he was late for a nearby media event, and that the man hates to be late. We also know that he suffered dire injuries to his lower legs, including multiple fractures in his right shin and a crushed right ankle and foot, that bones broke through the skin, that the tissue around the muscles had swelled so much that surgeons had to cut into it to relieve pressure – and they had do to it within a short time window or he’d have risked amputation.

In my cover story in the August 2008 edition of Fairways + Greens magazine, which I published and edited for more than a decade, I questioned when Tiger would return to the game after his incredible fourth U.S. Open win at Torrey Pines, and subsequent surgery.

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In this New York Times story, doctors describe in detail what likely took place in the operating room, how the next few weeks and months are likely to look, and their odds of Tiger ever playing golf again. It’s grim.

It’s also time to give Tiger the benefit of the doubt, to look beyond his nearly unmatched greatness as a golfer, his uneven reputation, his phenomenal and fascinating and fearsome Tigerness – and just look at him, pray for him and hurt for him as a fellow human being.

Of course, a torrent of supportive Tweets and statements from fellow players, sponsors, the PGA Tour and others, came forth, too. To a person they expressed their belief, or hope, that he would return to competition at some point, that he’s slain many a dragon in the past and he’ll find a way to do it again. “Never count him out,” said Nick Faldo. “He’ll be back the better for it,” said Tony Finau. And we’ve heard plenty of comparisons to the incredible recovery of another epochal golfer, Ben Hogan, whose run-in with a bus in 1949 left him with a shattered pelvis, a broken left ankle, broken collarbone and broken rib. “The Hawk” was back in the hunt within a year, winning the 1950 U.S. Open and six of his nine majors after the accident.

So we’re forgiven for holding out hope this time. Like millions of fans, and as a guy who has followed Tiger’s career since the beginning – I can remember him appearing on the “Mike Douglas Show” as a precocious 3-year-old with his dad, Earl – and written about him since he turned pro in 1996, I don’t want this to be the end of him as a competitive force in golf.

Tiger Woods is responsible for all but saving the game from decline as the 1990s gave way to the 2000s; his incredible talent, ability, charisma and towering, telegenic presence gave golf a media heft it hadn’t enjoyed since Arnold Palmer’s heyday, then blew by it. Even Jack Nicklaus in his prime didn’t create the buzz, the fervor among even average fans, and the economic windfall within and for the game that Tiger did, and, to an extent, still does, nearly a quarter-century after he won the 1997 Masters, the first of his 15 majors – bookended by perhaps the game’s greatest-ever career comeback triumph, a fifth Masters win in 2019, at age 43.

I’ve been fortunate to cover Tiger in person at dozens of Tour events over the decades, as well as the 2004 Ryder Cup, the 2010 President’s Cup and four U.S. Opens, including the two that will forever define his greatness and guts – the 2000 edition at Pebble Beach, which he won by 15 shots, and the 2008 triumph at Torrey Pines, where he somehow managed to make it to a playoff with Rocco Mediate after four rounds on a blown-out knee, often crumbling to the ground in pain after a swing – then outlasted him over 19 holes. I’ve watched him melt competitors with that blank stare before the first tee shot was even fired, and we’ve all witnessed him pull off shots that defy reason and even gravity, usually under the most extreme pressure imaginable.

And, we’ve seen him come back from setbacks – self-inflicted, physical, legal, circumstantial, personal – time and time again. We’ve counted him down and out, then watched him soar to head-scratching heights. He’s never let us down.

But this feels different. At 45 – a full nine years older than Hogan was when he cheated death and regained championship form – he has six major spinal surgeries under his belt, and a host of other old-for-his-age maladies born of millions of full-speed golf swings, overzealous training and a ridiculous work ethic. Golf is a game played from the ground up, on a strong base, and that takes strong, stable legs. Suddenly and shockingly, Tiger doesn’t have them anymore, any may not again. Yes, he’ll have the best medical care possible, the best rehab, the top trainers – and if there’s a man on the planet who has the mental fortitude to overcome this, it’s Eldrick Woods.

But when the bones have fused, the blood vessels are at full pump and those first halting steps are taken toward his two adoring children, his friends and his future, will his allegiance to, and passion for, the sport that has always defined him remain intact? Can his vaunted confidence somehow carry him across the brutal battlefield of physical and psychic pain one more time, or will he yield to the realities of age and medical limitation, and turn his full attention to being the best dad, partner, buddy and, perhaps, golf ambassador that he can be? Will he have a choice?

Short of matching or passing Nicklaus’ record of 18 professional majors, which now seems all but impossible, or bettering the 82-total-win record he currently shares with Sam Snead, Tiger has nothing left to prove in golf. It has consumed him from early childhood – indeed robbed him of a “normal” upbringing and bred in him emotional demons that he was only recently showing signs of defeating. We smiled and marveled as he finally seemed to be enjoying himself out there, comfortable in his own skin, and with his legacy. He was a dad in full during a father-son tournament in December, his last competitive outing. He positively glowed with pride when his boy, Charlie, nailed a shot or buried a putt, just like the old man.

Could that sweet event be his swan song? Perhaps he will want it to be, even if, just two days before the accident, during a TV interview with Jim Nantz, he seemed genuinely at a loss whether his latest spine surgery would let him practice, much less play. He seemed tired, diminished somehow, maybe even scared. And now this.

Yes, it’s grim. Tiger is a long way from facing that decision, but it’s out there, putting his identity, and his ability to love himself, to the test. It’ll take every ounce of love and compassion those closest to him can muster to help him regain his footing in the world, and find his way forward.