Michael Bamberger - The Second Life of Tiger Woods

Fascinating[Bamberger] knows the world of professional golf, and the pressures it exacts, like few others. The Wall Street Journal

The Second Life of Tiger Woods

Michael Bamberger

New York Times bestselling author of Men in Green

ALSO BY MICHAEL BAMBERGER

The Green Road Home

To the Linksland

Bart & Fay (a play)

Wonderland

This Golfing Life

The Man Who Heard Voices

The Swinger (with Alan Shipnuck)

Men in Green

MORE PRAISE FOR

The Second Life of Tiger Woods

ThoughtfulReaders will find fascinating gems.Mr. Bamberger goes out of his way to be fair, clearly distinguishing between what we can know and what we will probably never know. His speculations about the private Woods, always labeled as such, are informed by his more than three decades of golf reporting and five previous books about golf, including one about caddying for a tour pro. He knows the world of professional golf, and the pressures it exacts, like few others.

John Paul Newport, The Wall Street Journal

Love Tiger Woods? Loathe him? Theres something in this book for everyone.Bamberger is unafraid to look into some of the darker corners of Woodss life, including his rumored PED use. The book ends on a high note, though, with Woodss unforgettable win in last years Masters Tournament. Bambergers writing style is easy-going and loose-limbed, as smooth and natural-feeling as Freddie Coupless swing.

Monte Burke, Forbes

A fantastic bookBamberger takes a look at Woodss recent years with a discerning but empathetic eye and teaches us new ways to see his most recent journey.

Dylan Dethier, Golf.com

Reading The Second Life of Tiger Woods is like playing a great golf course without prior knowledge of the holes that lie ahead. You know theyre going to be good, and in the end, they add up to something special.To the extent that its possible to know whats in Tigers mind, Bamberger delivers.A terrific book.

Gary DAmato, Wisconsin Golf

The consummate Tour insiderBamberger has written a thoughtful, conscientious, and shrewd assessment of the life of Tiger Woods.Lively, astute, and vigorously reported.

John Strawn, author of Driving the Green

This may be the most insightful and evenhanded book yet written about one of the signature athletes of the last twenty-five years.

Booklist (starred review)

GrippingEven non-Tiger fans might find this amazing comeback story appealing.

Kirkus Reviews

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

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Shivas, here it is! I cried and picked it up. Its here in the hole!

Ill be damned, he said, his eyes more cross-eyed than ever. Tis the first time I eer shot a hole-in-one on the thirteenth. He looked at the shillelagh, and kissed its mean-looking burl. Ye saved my life, ol spoon, he said with enormous relief. Thank ye kindly.

MICHAEL MURPHY,

GOLF IN THE KINGDOM

T igers funny.

A while back, after Nike stopped making golf clubs, he was shopping for a new deal, trying every brand youve heard of and some you maybe have not. Tiger was on the phone with Davis Love. It was Christmastime, and the Love house looked like the United terminal at OHare, with so many people coming and going.

Howre things at your house? Davis asked.

Tigers first win on the PGA Tour had been over Davis in a playoff. Twenty years later, Davis was the captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team and Tiger was one of his assistants. Golf does long well.

My house, Tiger said, looks like a PGA Tour Superstore.

When Tiger was in his prime but having a bad tournament, hed sometimes tell Steve Williams, Stevie, looks like Ill be opening TWs Car Wash pretty soon, and youll be polishing cars. A droll line, but a reassuring thought. Even if Tiger played his way out of golf, his caddie would still have a job.

In the interest of candor, you should know that Tiger can work blue and often does. That makes him like millions of other American men with exposure to playground basketball or army veterans or both. After hearing that a male acquaintance had spent a productive hour with not one but two late-night pros in legal Nevada, Tigers retort was immediate: Which one had a dick?

Blech.

But he has many moves. With a script in hand, he can do it all. He can be funny, serious, warm, contemplative, mischievous. You can imagine professional actors who wish they had Tigers range. He doesnt do Method. He once told Bryson DeChambeau, when they were shooting an ad together, Youre overthinking it, bro. Tiger was playing a bored student to Brysons mad professor, and he was nailing every take. Hes a natural. Tiger has been playing for cameras all his life. In middle age, amid the wallop it packs, he has shown a depth he didnt have as a teenager or as a young man in his twenties and thirties. Self-deprecation has become part of his repertoire.

Heres an extreme example but a telling one, from the May night when he was charged with suspicion of driving under the influence, a camera rolling all the while. Tiger was in a holding cell at the Palm Beach county jail at four in the morning. He was about to take a Breathalyzer test. A police officer was posing a series of boilerplate questions. Tiger was barefoot and hatless. He was wearing baggy workout shorts and a long-sleeved Nike running shirt. His cuffed hands were behind his back and he was unsteady on his narrow feet. He was forty-one and not ready for his close-up. Still, he soldiered on, as pros do.

Your home address, Mr. Woods.

Your date of birth.

Your height, your weight.

Your eye color.

Your hair color.

Mostly brown, Tiger said to the last. And fading.

The officer chortled. Male-pattern baldness doesnt care how many golf trophies you have in your den.

Not quite two years later, Tiger won the Masters. What he did over the course of those twenty-three months is a monument to the human capacity to rise. Somehow, and not alone, Woods got from that depressing holding cell on Gun Club Road in West Palm Beach to the eighteenth green of the Augusta National Golf Club, the winners green jacket being draped over his shoulders.