by Hank Haney
But Tiger’s poor putting cost him in the last round, as he missed seven putts under 10 feet, the first one a six-footer on the first hole for a birdie. That set the tone for the day. I contend that Tiger’s biggest opponent at Hazeltine was the law of averages. He was simply due for things to not go his way on the final day of a major, balancing out what had gone so right at Torrey Pines. Besides his own mistakes, he saw Y. E. Yang make the kind of winning shots that he was used to pulling off, especially Yang’s chip in for eagle on the fourteenth hole. Tiger could have tied on the 71st hole with a par, but after he hit a solid 7-iron over the flag and into the rough, he made a mediocre chip, and missed the kind of eight-footer he customarily buried in such situations. He came to the 72nd a stroke behind, but Yang, continuing the magic, stiffed a hybrid approach from 210 yards to close it out.
Tiger knew that he’d let one get away, but he wasn’t as upset as I’d seen him after some other losses at majors. He’d been proud of his 14–0 run of winning majors after holding or sharing the third-round lead, but he never expected it to last forever. He was well aware of how many close calls Jack Nicklaus had suffered in major championships, and with only six second-place finishes in majors compared to Jack’s 19, Tiger knew he was due for at least a few frustrating runner-up placings.
As was becoming his habit, Tiger played at an extremely high level the last part of the year, finishing either first or second in six of his last seven official tournaments. Without a major, it didn’t seem to matter much, and I could see his outlook souring as he received the latest evidence that for him, the expectations would always be impossible to fulfill. In September, he threw his driver in anger at the Deutsche Bank event near Boston, and in his last appearance of the year, a victory at the Australian Masters in November, he whipped it down so hard after a poor tee shot that it bounced into the gallery. Tiger was lucky nobody was hurt, but I thought what was most telling was the way he barely looked at the person who handed the club back to him, as if it was other people’s role to clean up his messes. I didn’t go to Australia, but watching it on television, I thought, This is a troubled guy.
I and everyone else would soon find out the reason, and Tiger’s life issue would reduce the strides he was making in his game to irrelevancy. As his coach, I found that sad, because I still considered it a noble undertaking to help the most gifted golfer ever fulfill his awesome potential.
By the end of 2009, I believed that even though Tiger’s putting had started to cost him major championships, he could easily solve the problem by rededicating himself to that crucial part of the game. I didn’t see any evidence that he was losing his stroke or his nerve, only that he wasn’t putting in the time necessary to be exceptional on the greens.
For me the ultimate challenge was Tiger’s driving, which for the myriad reasons I’ve discussed had been his biggest weakness since I’d become his coach. But I was proud that he’d made slow but steady progress in the last few years, and before things fell apart I was looking at 2010 as the year he’d make the breakthrough that would truly put his golf on a level never before seen.
What Tiger had long been missing—and perhaps never really had—was the kind of automatic go-to shot with the driver that could be relied on no matter how he was playing. The great drivers of the ball—in particular Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, and Lee Trevino—all had such a shot, and it had lent an ease to their games that was a joy to watch and, more important, a joy to possess. I thought that, for the sake of his own longevity, Tiger needed something similar because his driver had forced him to work awfully hard during his rounds, and I thought the strain was starting to tell.
What I’d set my mind on installing in 2009 was a driver “stinger” to go along with his cut shot as a go-to shot. I knew in my bones Tiger could master the shot because he already did it well with the 5-wood and 3-wood. It would be a low-flying shot with little curve that he’d find was easy to keep on line, and though it might cost him 15 yards or so in distance, the ball would go far enough. Tiger already had the technique down and could perform the driver stinger on the range, but I hadn’t been able to get him to trust it on the course. He never gave a reason, but it seemed as if the pressure he felt to perform had gotten so great that it had turned him conservative when it came to risking a new shot in competition. There was also the fact that the big miss was for him more possible with the driver than any other club.
But he also understood that the whole point of the stinger driver was to make the big miss go away. I could feel that he was getting closer to trusting the shot, because he’d often break it out in a practice round or on the range, often unannounced. He knew how much I loved the shot and wanted him to use it, and he’d enjoy hitting it and silently sharing with me an admiration of its flight. He might then give me a sly look, or even keep his head down but say, “Like that one, huh?” In 2009, he was tantalizing me with that routine more and more, and it was heartening. I’d seize the opportunity to implore him, saying stuff like, “Tiger, that’s the ultimate shot. No one else has that shot. No one else is good enough to hit it. Put that in your bag and you jump ahead of everyone even more. That shot gives you the whole package.”
It should have happened.
“Hank, I want to give you a heads-up.”
The voice on my cell phone belongs to Mark Steinberg. He’s just returned from Australia, where a few days before, Tiger had won the 2009 Australian Masters in Melbourne. I’m on my way to China, where I’m working on establishing a junior golf academy at Misson Hills Golf Club.
Mark’s tone is brisk and businesslike. “There’s going to be a story coming out about Tiger and this girl,” he says. “It’s not true. Everything is going to be fine. But if anybody asks you about it, don’t say anything.”
I assure him I won’t. Mark is clearly in a hurry and says good-bye. The conversation has lasted about 30 seconds.
A little more than a week later, I was still in China when I received another call, this one at about two a.m. It was from a reporter calling from America, who asked if I’d heard about Tiger’s car crash in Orlando. I said no, and after hanging up got on the Internet and began reading about Tiger hitting the fire hydrant.
I called Mark, who was back in the United States. My concern was about Tiger being injured, but Mark said, “He’s going to be fine.” He sounded even more hurried than in his earlier call, so I said good-bye and hung up.
By the time I returned home to Dallas several days later, Tiger’s whole world had changed. The story Mark had been talking about, in the National Enquirer, had been the first of a series of reports that made it pretty clear Tiger had been having multiple extramarital affairs.
My first reaction was shock. I began coaching Tiger a few months before he married Elin in October 2004, and I’d known them as a couple since 2002. During that time, on the road or in Orlando, I never saw Tiger flirting or acting inappropriately with another woman, or even heard rumors that he was seeing others.
He had, very occasionally, commented on how attractive a woman in our presence might be, but that was the extent of Tiger being a “player” from my view.
I’d noticed that while he and E had been playful in the early years of their relationship—competing against each other in tennis, Ping-Pong, skiing, or running—there was some distance between them as the years went on, a certain coolness. But a lot of marriages are like that. I hadn’t jumped to any conclusions.
I have no doubt that many people will have a hard time believing I knew nothing about Tiger’s women. Almost automatically, they’ll consider me, at best, an enabler. So be it. Probably nothing I can say will change their minds. In the aftermath of Tiger’s scandal, I didn’t issue a public denial because I knew such a statement would also have gotten me labeled a liar. But after the shock, there was recognition. Whether working with me on his game or during downtime, Tiger always had a wall up, behind which I’d long imagined there was some kind of personal turmoil. His scandal brought home the uneas
y sense of pressure building that I’d always had around Tiger. On some deep level, I’d been expecting something to break.
As I reflected back, I realized that I’d never thought of Tiger as happy. Whether with friends, business associates, other players, his mother, or his wife—indeed, with just about everyone except an audience of kids at one of his clinics—he seemed to keep the atmosphere around him emotionally arid. Part of it was the insane drive that was vital to his greatness. It seemed the longer he was the best, the more isolated and lonely he became.
No golfer had ever played in a bubble of fame like Tiger’s, so when his scandal occurred, my first reaction was sympathy. I began to think of Tiger as belonging to a group that included such figures as Michael Jackson and Britney Spears—public superstars whose ways of escaping pressure became self-destructive. I began to understand that Tiger’s burden had been even heavier than I’d thought.
Once the news was out, I tried to contact Tiger by text but didn’t hear back. On December 23, I sent him a longer message that offered support:
Tiger,
I just wanted you to know that I will always be your friend, bud. I am sure you feel bad about everything that has happened. The fact is that everyone makes mistakes and you can’t undo something that has already been done. All you can ever do is live in the present and then plan for the future. Like I always say, the great thing about yesterday is that it is never going to happen again. A great man once said this: “The lessons I learn today I will apply tomorrow, and I will be better.” That great man is you. It is obvious that you have a long road, but short road or long road you handle it the same way, one step at a time. If I can ever help in any way I am always available. I just wanted to let you know that I am thinking of you. Hang in there.
Hank
He didn’t e-mail back, but right after Christmas, he called. His first words were, “Well, I finally got my phone working,” which was a line he’d used before when he hadn’t returned a call for a while. He had a lot of problems with his phone, in part because he changed his number so often. His voice was flat, as if nothing had happened since the last time we spoke, which had been about six weeks before, just after he won the Australian Masters. But when I ventured to ask how he was doing, his answer—“About as good as I can”—was somber.
He didn’t volunteer anything else. The only reference he made to his situation was, “God, the media is pounding me. They’re such vultures.” At the end of the conversation he said, “I’m going to be gone for a while.” He didn’t say where he was going, and I didn’t ask. But I figured it was somewhere to disappear from view, and maybe to get some help.
During the month he spent at a Mississippi clinic, I didn’t hear from him. I received texted updates and reports from Mark and Tiger’s longtime friend Bryon Bell, but they had their hands full with the aftermath of the scandal, and there were no details. I heard only that Tiger was OK, but that he wasn’t taking any calls as he underwent treatment.
After Tiger got out of inpatient treatment in early February, he called me at home in Dallas. He sounded better and was more forthcoming. He described his therapy as “horrible, the worst experience I’ve ever been through” and “the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” but he didn’t offer any details. When I asked about Elin, who’d participated in some couples therapy with him, he said, “We’re trying. But I don’t know if she is buying all this stuff.” He added, “She wants me to not play golf for two years. Right now, I don’t know.” The call lasted about ten minutes.
On February 19, I watched Tiger give his televised apology from the PGA Tour’s headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. I didn’t attend because I was in Cabo San Lucas, where I’d picked up a bad case of bronchitis. Mark Steinberg had called me two days before to ask me if I could get to Florida right away. Because it was such short notice and because my bronchitis made me apprehensive about getting on a long flight, I declined, and Mark didn’t pressure me to change my mind.
Watching Tiger deliver his apology in front of that blue curtain was depressing. He looked more wrung out than I’d ever seen him. I was disappointed that he chose to read from a prepared statement. I found myself wanting to hear him speak more naturally, more from the heart, and even take some questions. I’d hoped that he’d come out of treatment trying to be more open.
To be supportive, I sent him a text message telling him he did a good job. To my surprise, he got right back, texting, “Thanks. Appreciate it.” A few minutes later, he called.
It seemed as if giving the speech had lightened his load, because he sounded upbeat. He was almost talkative, and at one point actually dropped his guard. “I learned one thing for sure,” he said with conviction. “When I play golf again, I’m going to play for myself. I’m not going to play for my dad, or my mom, or Mark Steinberg, or Steve Williams, or Nike, or my foundation, or you, or the fans. Only for myself.”
It was the most intimate and revealing thing he’d ever said to me. It was the first time he’d suggested that he was actually conflicted about his upbringing. I’d never heard him publicly or privately question the way he’d been raised. Both his parents had consistently maintained that Tiger was never pushed to play golf—that he’d loved the game as a toddler and constantly wanted to go to the golf course. As Tiger became a prolific winner in junior golf, both he and his parents publicly held to the line that the game was never put before his education or a normal life. I’d never heard Tiger mention his father’s oft-quoted statements that his son would be more influential than Gandhi or that he was a better person than he was a golfer. I’d never heard him question a public image that carried the dual expectation of superstar-level golf playing and flawless public behavior, or express resentment about his responsibilities as an employer or head of a foundation. But it was clear from the forcefulness of Tiger’s tone that he’d learned that the obligations imposed on him had exacted a considerable toll.
I thought, This is a good start. He’s really looking at himself. It gave me hope that Tiger was on his way to becoming a more self-aware and contented person. In his public apology, he’d vowed to go back to the Buddhist values that his mother had taught him in childhood. “Buddhism teaches that a craving of things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security,” Tiger said. “It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught.”
I’d never seen Tiger meditate or talk about Buddhism, but the ideals made sense. Tiger seemed to be talking about a radical change, which made me wonder about how altering the Package would affect his golf. Tiger’s intense sense of mission when he played gave him his fire, his focus, and his incredible ability to find something extra at the most urgent moments. For all the success this had given him, what if that mission had helped mess up his life? If Tiger was asking himself that question, was he going to be reluctant to keep putting his whole identity on the line when he played? If golf didn’t mean as much to him anymore, then he’d probably win less often. If that happened, I thought it might make him more enjoyable to coach and be around. Going forward, that was a trade-off I would take.
After going uncharacteristically deep, Tiger backed off and changed the subject. “Anyway,” he said, “I have a lot of work to do.” But he continued the personal tone when he told me that the night before, he had walked out onto the practice range across from his house and, in the pitch dark, had hit five full shots with a sand wedge. “First swings since all this shit happened,” he said. I asked, maybe a little too earnestly, “So, how did you hit them?” He probably heard in my voice a slight worry that his ordeal might have completely erased his aptitude for the game, because he kind of chuckled and said, “Oh, they were solid.” Then before hanging up he said, “I’m getting ready to start back up. Once I get going, I want you to come down here, and we’ll start working.”
From my perspective, there was an obvious question: When was Tiger coming back to competition? In his apol
ogy, he’d said, “I do plan to return to golf one day. I just don’t know when that day will be. I don’t rule out that it will be this year.” The choice of words suggested later rather than sooner. But I didn’t want to press Tiger in a delicate moment, so I refrained from asking if he had a date in mind.
A week later, he called and said he was ready for me to come to Isleworth to begin rebuilding his game. “You can stay in the house as long as you want,” he said, adding that Elin and the two children had moved to a rented home nearby. “It’s just me.” On March 8, the same date I began as his coach six years before, I flew from Dallas to Orlando and again rented a car. On the drive to Isleworth, I decided I would stay as low-key as I could. I figured Tiger would be in a pretty fragile state, and I didn’t want to appear to be forcing anything. But as I drove up to the country club’s guardhouse, gave my name, and was allowed through the gates, I couldn’t help being a little nervous.
As I pulled into Tiger’s driveway, I saw that he was already on the practice range hitting balls. When I walked across the street onto the long hitting area, I was taken aback by the sight of Elin standing nearby with the two kids. As I got closer, Tiger stepped toward me and gave me a man-hug that was quick and a little awkward. “How you doin’, bud?” I said, and he answered, “Good to see you.” He seemed determined to keep things as normal as possible.
I then approached Elin. It was a difficult moment, but at the same time I didn’t feel any dread. I was at peace because, after everything happened, I’d texted her with some messages of concern, and made it clear that I hadn’t known about Tiger’s activities. And Tiger had told me in our last phone call, “Elin knows that you and Stevie weren’t involved or knew anything.” The look on her face was sad, and she hugged me a little longer than usual.