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Showing posts with label biographies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biographies. Show all posts

Friday, March 23, 2018

The New Tiger Woods Book

Today I'm posting a link to Golf Digest's review of the new book about Tiger. The book is just called Tiger Woods, and the review here sounds interesting.

Cover of the new Tiger Woods book

Here's a brief segment from early in the review:
Culled from more than 400 interviews, including over 250 people from in and around Woods’ life—although tellingly not directly with the title subject—it is a book brimming with revealing details about Woods’ unique background, his rise to superstardom and the myriad character flaws that contributed to his well-publicized fall. But remember, we’re talking about an athlete who has likely inspired more coverage than any in history, so the real achievement in Tiger Woods is not in detailing what has happened in the golfer’s 42 years. Instead, it is in describing how Woods became who he is—uniquely gifted, widely admired, but also emotionally stunted by his parents.
Don't misunderstand -- the review doesn't say that Tiger had horrible parents or that he's not responsible for his own mistakes. But it does point out how a child who is groomed for greatness often doesn't get the same treatment that a "normal" child does, and that those differences sometimes have unexpected effects on that child's growth.

The examples from the book that are given in the review do, as the review points out, help us understand why he seems to be so much happier now despite the dark days he went through. It seems that Tiger is no longer defining himself just by his success on the golf course, and that has begun to free him from his own superhero status.

Sounds like it might be an interesting book. The review alone is worth the read.

Friday, April 22, 2016

The Secret History of Tiger Woods

Today I'm just giving you a link, but it's one helluva link! ESPN reporter Wright Thompson has spent something over a year doing a piece on the last decade of Tiger's life, since his dad died. It's called The Secret History of Tiger Woods and, unlike so many things that have been written, it's a huge piece -- around 11,000 words -- and Thompson talked to a lot of people who know him, like Michael Jordan and other friends.

Tiger and Notah Begay III

I haven't read the whole thing yet -- as I said, it's huge -- but ESPN had Thompson on some of their shows Thursday and spent an entire episode of Outside the Lines talking to Thompson. And Thompson's take on what Tiger has gone through is very different from what you might expect...
In essence, Thompson said he has been struck by just how much Tiger is like the rest of us. And he said that anybody who learns about what Tiger has been through and doesn't feel compassion for him simply isn't human.
Ironically, Thompson also said he doesn't intend to be an apologist for Tiger. It's just that his investigation found that Tiger is a mass of contradictions just like the rest of us, a introvert who is far more comfortable playing with his kids and the dog or reading a book than being a superstar, a son who struggled with his father's death more deeply than most fans realize.

The piece is, in large part, about the complicated relationship between Tiger and his dad. And between what I heard from the author on TV and what I've read so far, this is a fascinating piece that I have no problem recommending. It's not about Tiger the superstar but about Tiger the human being, and that's unusual.