3/31/26
25 years ago, Tiger Woods won the 2001 Masters and became the only golfer ever to hold all four majors simultaneously. It was his fifth major championship in the last seven majors, and his sixth total major championship in his career. The CBS broadcast was perplexed at Woods having a chance at the accomplishment, as none of the members of the telecast could conceive of such a feat. Perhaps even more inconceivable has been the two and a half decades of disappointments that have the golf world frustrated, sad, concerned, and confused as to how we got here.
The legacy of Tiger Woods should be that he’s one of the greatest golfers to ever play the game and one of the most transcendent athletes ever. That legacy gets tarnished more and more with the constant missteps Woods takes. The most recent disappointment came last Friday, when Woods crashed his Range Rover attempting to overtake a truck and clipped the trailer of power washing equipment attached to the truck, causing his vehicle to flip and roll over. Woods was arrested for DUI and other charges and was let go after a mandatory eight-hour period. This is the second time Woods has been arrested for DUI, the first coming in 2017, when he was booked but eventually not charged with DUI. In 2021, Woods crashed his car with the throttle input at 99%, driving at speeds of 75 miles per hour when he flipped and rolled over in Los Angeles, nearly causing his legs to be amputated. Then there’s 2009, when the morning of Thanksgiving, Woods was confronted by his then-wife, Elin Nordegren, about extramarital affairs. Woods jumped in his car and crashed into a fire hydrant and a tree, causing him to go unconscious, while Nordegren had to smash a window with a golf club to drag him out of the vehicle. The copious amounts of cheating, including a college-aged neighbor, ultimately led to their divorce in 2010. Woods was originally caught cheating in 2007 by a news tabloid, but that story was squashed when he and his agent worked out a deal to do a cover story for Men’s Fitness. Talk about justice.
Woods’ talent as a golfer is immortal. It will live on forever. His deplorable, imbecilic actions will too. The latter is rapidly catching up to the former. Strictly as a parent, it’s incomprehensible as to why he continues to make these choices, while his children have to look on at the man they should be admiring and instead are left asking once again, “What the hell, Dad?”
Woods is a walking game of Operation. He’s been putting his body through such stress in his chase to get Jack Nicklaus’ mark of 18 major championships. Woods is at 15, which in itself is a disappointment. Woods arbitrarily decided to put himself through Navy SEAL training in 2006, after his father, Earl, passed away. Despite still winning and racking up major championships, Woods quickly beat his body up and caused irreparable harm to his body, and in 2008, after tearing his ACL among other injuries, he started a two-decade run of surgeries, procedures, WDs, and painkillers. Woods spent much of the last decade recovering from surgeries, personal embarrassment, and attempting to get back to the player he once was.
At the 2017 Masters, he told players that he was done, his back couldn’t handle it anymore. Two years later, he put on the green jacket for the fifth time, winning the 2019 Masters in exhilarating fashion. It was a reminder that Tiger could do it, and the chase was back on for 18 majors. What it should have been was a brutal reality that the previous 11 years should have been full of those memories. His children should have hugged their father routinely behind the 72nd green of PGA Tour events and major championships. He should have been healthy enough to play in and captain Ryder Cups, rather than focusing on constant rehabbing and recovery from the latest surgery. Instead, the world was treated to the worst version of the most talented golfer to ever live.
There’s an alternate timeline after he completes the Tiger Slam where Woods is a family man, at least a 25-time major champion, if not more, thanks to unbridled modern golf technology, a hero, a role model, a figure that lives on for all the right reasons. Tiger Woods needs help, and he needs to face the music. Rather than turning his back on the slightest negative thing said about him or preparing to limp around The Masters or thrusting himself into various PGA Tour committees, take significant time to get proper care and change his ways. The reality is, he has to accept that he isn’t immortal, and if someone were to die due to his stubbornness, his legacy will not first be remembered for the golf, but for a preventable tragedy.
Life doesn’t provide a book on how to be a celebrity. However, there are plenty of chapters on what not to do as a celebrity. Woods has accrued so many chapters that it makes the Harry Potter series look like a business card. The next chapter of Woods’ life will be a very telling one.
www.elisportsnetwork.com
