ESPN on Thursday published a massive profile of Tiger Woods that, in the off-chance you haven’t read it already, you absolutely should.
Author Wright Thompson offers an alternate theory about Tiger’s so-called downfall: That Tiger’s car crash on on Thanksgiving in 2009 and ensuing revelations of his sex scandal wasn’t the start of his downfall, as most people commonly believe. Rather, it was the result of a downward spiral that Tiger had been experiencing following his father’s death in 2006. It’s a fascinating and revealing glimpse of what makes Tiger Woods, well, Tiger Woods.
AP)
There are so many interesting moments in the piece, but one of the more notable ones involved Michael Jordan and Derek Jeter teaching Tiger Woods how to flirt with women following the death of his father:
In 1999, in the quiet Oregon woods near the Deschutes River with Mark O’Meara and one of the best steelhead guides in the world, Tiger held court about the perks of being a professional athlete. “I’m walking down the trail with him and he’s bragging about his sexual conquests,” says guide Amy Hazel. “And this is when everybody thought he was the golden boy.”
He told just filthy stories that Hazel wouldn’t repeat, but even with the boasts and dirty jokes, she saw him as more of a big kid than a playboy. “Nerdy and socially awkward” are her words, and he seemed happiest standing in the river riffing lines from the Dalai Lama scene in Caddyshack.
The sexual bravado hid his awkwardness around women. One night he went to a club in New York with Derek Jeter and Michael Jordan. Jeter and Jordan circulated, talking with ease to one beautiful woman after another. (Both declined to comment about the episode.) At one point, Tiger walked up to them and asked the question that lives in the heart of every junior high boy and nearly every grown man too.
“What do you do to talk to girls?”
Jeter and Jordan looked at each other, then back at Tiger, sort of stunned.
Go tell ’em you’re Tiger Woods, they said.
Again, please, go read it.
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