Interesting to read this in the days after Kobe's retirement. It seems Tiger may care about golf as much as Kobe Bryant cares about basketball.
Tiger's Private Struggles
Turning 40, the golfer talks about his highs and lows on and off the course
Where are you right now with your recovery?
I have just started walking. That’s it.
You were just sitting all day at home?
Mm-hmm.
What’s a day of rehab like for you now?
I walk 10 minutes on the beach. That’s it. Then I come back home and lie back down on the couch, or a bed.
Do you watch golf?
I can’t remember the last time I watched golf. I can’t stand it. Unless one of my friends has a chance to win, then I like watching it. I watched Jason [Day] win the PGA. But it was on mute. It’s always on mute and I have some other game on another TV.
Do you have any recovery goals? With past injuries, you have.
Absolutely. But this one, I can’t. There’s no timetable. And that’s a hard mind-set to go through. Because I’ve always been a goal setter. Now I had to rethink it, and say, O.K., my goal is to do nothing today. For a guy who likes to work, that’s a hard concept for me to understand. I’ve learned a little bit of it, I think. I know that, one, I don’t want to have another procedure. And two, even if I don’t come back and I don’t play again, I still want to have a quality of life with my kids. I started to lose that with the other surgeries.
Because you couldn’t do things with them?
I’ll never forget when I really hurt my back and it was close to being done, I was practicing out back at my house. I hit a flop shot over the bunker, and it just hit the nerve. And I was down. I didn’t bring my cell phone. I was out there practicing and I end up on the ground and I couldn’t call anybody and I couldn’t move. Well, thank God my daughter’s a daddy’s girl and she always wants to hang out. She came out and said, “Daddy, what are you doing lying on the ground?” I said, “Sam, thank goodness you’re here. Can you go tell the guys inside to try and get the cart out, to help me back up?” She says, “What’s wrong?” I said, “My back’s not doing very good.” She says, “Again?” I say, “Yes, again, Sam. Can you please go get those guys?”
What’s it like when you contemplate the possibility that you’re not going to be able to play again?
Anyone I’ve ever talked to who has had procedures like I’ve had, they say the same thing: you don’t know. With a joint, you know. With a nerve, you just don’t know. I’ve talked to Peyton [Manning] about his neck and what he’s going through. It’s tough as athletes, when you just don’t know. The most important thing, though, is that I get to have a life with my kids. That’s more important than golf. I’ve come to realize that now.
You may not have realized that a few years ago?
One, the kids were still young, they weren’t into as many things. Prior to that, when I didn’t have kids, it would never enter my mind. Are you kidding me? What am I going to do, go bass fishing? No. But now to watch my kids and play sports and to grow up and participate, and even teach them how to become better, oh my God, it gives me so much joy. I can’t imagine not being able to do that as I get older.
That’s more important than winning a golf tournament?
Absolutely. No doubt. My kids are more important to me than anything else in the world.
What do you have to prove?
I’ve done a lot more in the game than I ever thought I could. And to be in my 30s, and to have done this much? I never would have foreseen that.
You won 14 majors by the time you were 32.
I know. It’s frightening. I’ve had a good run.
Are you saying that if it did all end because of your injuries, you’re not so uptight about it?
Put it this way. It’s not what I want to have happen, and it’s not what I’m planning on having happen. But if it does, it does. I’ve reconciled myself to it. It’s more important for me to be with my kids. I don’t know how I could live with myself not being able to participate in my kids’ lives like that. That to me is special. Now I know what my dad felt like when we’d go out there and play nine holes in the dark.
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You were at the center of the public eye when your private life was exposed in 2009. What would you have done differently before and after?
In hindsight, it’s not how I would change 2009 and how it all came about. It would be having a more open, honest relationship with my ex-wife. Having the relationship that I have now with her is fantastic. She’s one of my best friends. We’re able to pick up the phone, and we talk to each other all the time. We both know that the most important things in our lives are our kids. I wish I would have known that back then.
What kept you from knowing that?
Either that’s the position I was in, or I took advantage of opportunities. But, when it comes down to it, right down to it, it’s just having a more open, honest relationship with my ex-wife when we were married. Our frustrations would have come out if we had talked about it and been open and honest with each other. Which we are now, and it’s absolutely fantastic.
You tried to make it work for a while.
It was too tough, too tough. But now, in hindsight, as years and years have gone by, we’re like best friends. It’s fun. She talks to me about her life, I talk to her about my life. We try and help each other out on all occasions. And we work through it with the kids, the parenting program. She is one of my best friends now, and it’s all because of my kids. We’ve worked so hard, and I’ve shown her how much I love them. We’ve worked so hard at co-parenting, to make sure that their lives are fantastic. For instance, I’ve told her this, I’ve taken the initiative with the kids, and told them up front, “Guys, the reason why we’re not in the same house, why we don’t live under the same roof, Mommy and Daddy, is because Daddy made some mistakes.” I just want them to understand before they get to Internet age and they log on to something or have their friends tell them something. I want it to come from me so that when they come of age, I’ll just tell them the real story. But meanwhile, it’s just, “Hey, Daddy made some mistakes. But it’s O.K. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. But look what happened at the end of it. Look at how great you are. You have two loving parents that love you no matter what.” And I said, “You have no idea how lucky you guys are, to have two parents that love you so much. Unfortunately, we’re not in the same house, but the flip side is we love you no matter what you do. And I’m a parent, as the dad, who is always going to try to help you, guide you through life.” And so, that’s part of the initiative, hey, it was my fault too. I was to blame, and so I’m taking initiative with the kids. I’d rather have it come from me, as the source. And I can tell them absolutely everything, so they hear it from me.
It sounds like you’ve done a lot of reflection.
I think it’s the nature of golf, too.
It’s the most private sport played publicly.
One hundred percent agree. Think of how many hours a professional golfer has spent on the range, by himself, or chipping green by himself, or putting green by himself. Whereas other team sports, you’re always with a teammate. It’s a totally different atmosphere and a totally different mind-set. We can be loners and never see anybody.
Is part of being a champion being selfish?
I think every great champion who has ever lived would say, yeah, they’re selfish in certain aspects. That’s how you got there. You had to put in extra time in the weight room, extra time running and running, extra time recovering, extra time running their plays or hitting shots or doing the things that other people didn’t do. Why do you do it? Yeah, you wanted to become better. But there’s a cost.
Beyond the physical toll, can that hurt relationships?
Yeah.
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It’s always been said that one of the things that has driven you is Jack’s 18 majors. [Jack Nicklaus set the career record for major victories between 1962 and 1986.] If your career stopped now, that’s obviously out of the question.
I don’t want it to happen. Without a doubt. I do not. With all my heart, I do not want to stop playing golf. But the flip side is, my kids’ lives are much more important to me. Now, if I can do both, that is an ideal world. It’s a win-win. If I can only do one, it wouldn’t be golf. It would be my kids. That’s still a win-win.
You sound like you’re not driven as much by records as we might think. Yet you had Jack’s 18 majors on your bedroom wall as a kid. Is there a misconception about what drives you?
O.K., here’s the major misconception that people have all gotten wrong. It’s what was posted on my wall, about Jack’s records. It was not the majors, O.K.. There was one on there. It was the first time he broke 40, the first time he broke 80, the first golf tournament he ever won, first time he ever won the state amateur, first time he won the U.S. Amateur, and the first time he won the U.S. Open. That was it. That was the list. It was all age-related. To me, that was important. This guy’s the best out there and the best of all time. If I can beat each age that he did it, then I have a chance at being the best.
Have you beaten most of those?
I beat them all. I beat them all. [Note: Woods never did win the California Amateur championship.]
So the one left isn’t the one that was on the wall, the 18 majors.
No, just what I told you, all age-related, the first time he did this, this, this and this. His first major win was the U.S. Open. Mine was the Masters.
What is the ultimate criterion for deciding on who is the best ever?
You can’t compare eras. You really can’t. It’s like, O.K., who’s the better [pro basketball] center: Bill Russell or Shaq? You just can’t say who was the best because the game has changed so much. Jack crossed so many eras because he played for so long, and he was in contention for so long. The same could be said for Sam Snead. How many eras did he play through? He ended up winning, what, at 54, when he won at Greensboro? I think you have to be able to say you’ve played in so many different eras, and I have. Most of my friends are on the senior tour now, the guys I grew up playing with, my compatriots.
What’s it like for you sitting and not being able to compete against the current crop? I don’t think you’ve played against any of them at full strength.
I haven’t. It’s interesting to see how the game has changed. In today’s game you don’t have to make cuts. And I see these guys miss so many cuts when they’re that good. To go out five times in a year and miss cuts, I just don’t see that. It doesn’t compute, because I haven’t done it. I think I’ve missed only 15 cuts in my career.
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But you don’t want to hurt yourself either.
And I have. I pushed through it. When I enter a tournament, my intent is to win. And even though I’m banged up, or whatever it is, that’s also been one of my problems, that I have had the ability to block out pain and play through it. It’s been a good thing and a bad thing.
How has it been a bad thing?
It’s made injuries worse. I’ve paid the price. If you look at the U.S. Open in ’08, I played on no ACL, I’d ruptured my ACL in ’07, but I still won five of the last six tournaments I played that year, and the following year, I played six tournaments, I won four and finished second in the Masters. And so, understand that I can play through it, and I can still win, I can be successful, but along the way I’m just doing damage.
Did your doctors say that you shouldn’t play in the 2008 U.S. Open?
Everybody said the same thing. I said, it’s at Torrey [Torrey Pines golf course in San Diego, where Woods had won six PGA Tour events] and I’m playing. I’m going back to work. The funniest story ever, though, is that before that U.S. Open, I’m playing at Big Canyon—which was my home course in Southern Cal [Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach]—and I went out on the back nine. It was the first time I had played a round of golf—I hadn’t played a round since the Masters. I hadn’t walked a golf course yet until I get to the Monday of the U.S. Open, when I first walked nine holes. And I tried to play with this knee brace on, and we’ve tried, I don’t know how many, umpteen different types of knee braces, lengths, size, cuts, I tried them all, all different companies.
Well, the problem was, knee braces don’t allow you to rotate—a golf swing, you need to rotate. So I went out and played nine holes. I think I’m a pretty good golfer—you know what, I think I’m a damn good golfer—but when I went out there on my home course and I lost eight balls in nine holes. I shot 54, not long before the U.S. Open, and I’m grinding my butt off, and I said, O.K., you’re the No. 1 player in the world, and you just lost eight balls on a home course that you could play blindfolded, and I shot a 54. This is going to be an interesting week.
Did you feel things starting to improve, that you could handle the pain?
Yeah. That’s when I could feel the break a couple of times, and it hurt.
Did you ever consider, I can’t do it?
No, no. First of all, I didn’t want to show anybody that I was hurt. You never want to show your competitors that you’re hurt. I don’t want them to get that mental edge, Oh, he’s down. You always pick yourself right back up. That’s what I’ve tried to do my entire career: not show that I am hurt. Play through it.
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How do you keep up the intensity through all these injuries?
That is probably the most satisfying, because I think anyone can win when they’re playing great golf, when they’re at a level where everything is going well. That’s easy. But trying to dog out a win when it’s just not there, it’s really hard. It’s hard on the mind. Sometimes it can be very hard on the body, when the body’s not working right. For me, I rely a lot on the past, remembering shots and situations. But also understanding at that particular moment where I need to miss the ball, where I need to place the ball, putts that I remember breaking certain ways, how this putt was on this particular green because it was wet, what it did. All those things, my memory comes back to really help me. As I’ve gotten older and gotten more experienced, if the golf course hasn’t changed, I can tell you a lot of putts and shots, what they do. If you go to a course like St. Andrew’s, where they haven’t touched it, I can tell you all the breaks. Even though there are a lot of them, I can tell you what each one does. I think my mind has probably been my greatest asset.
If you look back, can you say what your best moment was?
I’m shocked at how many tournaments I’ve won, in hindsight, now that I’m laid up. More than 100 around the world. Playing through it, you really don’t realize it. If you’re in a team sport, you don’t realize how many games you’ve won. It just piles up on you. I wouldn’t think that [Tom] Brady right now knows how many games he’s won. You just play, you get ready for the next week, you’re in that moment. You’re always getting ready, always getting ready, always getting ready. Well, I can’t get ready for anything. O.K.? So it gives you a chance to step back and look at it from a grander scale, from 30,000 ft. And how my foundation has grown. We’re looking at expanding internationally. To be able to call up Condi Rice and say, “How do we do this?” She says, “O.K., what country is involved?” She can work with the embassies there, the universities. Those are conversations I couldn’t have when I was younger. I didn’t earn the right to be able to have the conversations. But now it’s legitimate. We’re in our 20th year. We have $100 million in endowment, that’s pretty good.
Do you think about your legacy?
The greatest thing that could happen is to not be remembered. What I mean by that is, the kids right now, they don’t know that Michael Jordan played. They see a Jumpman [logo] and they think, that’s so cool. I’m talking young kids, really young kids, single digits in age, they have no idea who Michael Jordan was, but the Jumpman logo is cool. Now, for me, they don’t understand who that is. My learning center, kids go through it and they don’t know who I am. They don’t know what I’ve done. But it’s a safe haven for them to learn and grow.
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Did you begin to see this after you turned pro, or earlier?
I didn’t play for any attention. I played for the hardware. I wanted to know that I beat everyone in this field, and I wanted them to know that they got their butt kicked. That to me was the absolute pure pleasure of competing. But then, I got noticed for that. But when I first started playing, I was a little kid, say, in the nine and unders, and 11 and under, there was nobody there, but I still want to kick your butt. That never changed. Then people started to take notice of those wins. But I had been doing it since I was very little. By the time I was 11 years old, I had already won 113 tournaments. I peaked at 11, to be honest with you. I went 36 and 0 that year, never lost a tournament, all in California. And I probably had the cutest girlfriend in all of sixth grade. And I had straight As. No A-minuses. They were all perfect A’s. I peaked at 11. I’ve been trying to get back to that since.
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You’re coming up to your 40th birthday. Can you honestly see yourself at the top again?
Absolutely. I have to get healthy in order to do it, though. I don’t think I’ll ever be 100% healthy, but as close as you can to that point, that would be nice. As long as I don’t have the pain, then I don’t think there would be an issue. I will probably play through a little bit of pain, aches and pains, as you get older, you have more aches and pains. But I don’t need another surgery, period. Let’s just not go down that road ever again. No more surgeries. Seven’s enough. Four knees, three backs, that’s enough.
Tiger's Private Struggles
Turning 40, the golfer talks about his highs and lows on and off the course
Where are you right now with your recovery?
I have just started walking. That’s it.
You were just sitting all day at home?
Mm-hmm.
What’s a day of rehab like for you now?
I walk 10 minutes on the beach. That’s it. Then I come back home and lie back down on the couch, or a bed.
Do you watch golf?
I can’t remember the last time I watched golf. I can’t stand it. Unless one of my friends has a chance to win, then I like watching it. I watched Jason [Day] win the PGA. But it was on mute. It’s always on mute and I have some other game on another TV.
Do you have any recovery goals? With past injuries, you have.
Absolutely. But this one, I can’t. There’s no timetable. And that’s a hard mind-set to go through. Because I’ve always been a goal setter. Now I had to rethink it, and say, O.K., my goal is to do nothing today. For a guy who likes to work, that’s a hard concept for me to understand. I’ve learned a little bit of it, I think. I know that, one, I don’t want to have another procedure. And two, even if I don’t come back and I don’t play again, I still want to have a quality of life with my kids. I started to lose that with the other surgeries.
Because you couldn’t do things with them?
I’ll never forget when I really hurt my back and it was close to being done, I was practicing out back at my house. I hit a flop shot over the bunker, and it just hit the nerve. And I was down. I didn’t bring my cell phone. I was out there practicing and I end up on the ground and I couldn’t call anybody and I couldn’t move. Well, thank God my daughter’s a daddy’s girl and she always wants to hang out. She came out and said, “Daddy, what are you doing lying on the ground?” I said, “Sam, thank goodness you’re here. Can you go tell the guys inside to try and get the cart out, to help me back up?” She says, “What’s wrong?” I said, “My back’s not doing very good.” She says, “Again?” I say, “Yes, again, Sam. Can you please go get those guys?”
What’s it like when you contemplate the possibility that you’re not going to be able to play again?
Anyone I’ve ever talked to who has had procedures like I’ve had, they say the same thing: you don’t know. With a joint, you know. With a nerve, you just don’t know. I’ve talked to Peyton [Manning] about his neck and what he’s going through. It’s tough as athletes, when you just don’t know. The most important thing, though, is that I get to have a life with my kids. That’s more important than golf. I’ve come to realize that now.
You may not have realized that a few years ago?
One, the kids were still young, they weren’t into as many things. Prior to that, when I didn’t have kids, it would never enter my mind. Are you kidding me? What am I going to do, go bass fishing? No. But now to watch my kids and play sports and to grow up and participate, and even teach them how to become better, oh my God, it gives me so much joy. I can’t imagine not being able to do that as I get older.
That’s more important than winning a golf tournament?
Absolutely. No doubt. My kids are more important to me than anything else in the world.
What do you have to prove?
I’ve done a lot more in the game than I ever thought I could. And to be in my 30s, and to have done this much? I never would have foreseen that.
You won 14 majors by the time you were 32.
I know. It’s frightening. I’ve had a good run.
Are you saying that if it did all end because of your injuries, you’re not so uptight about it?
Put it this way. It’s not what I want to have happen, and it’s not what I’m planning on having happen. But if it does, it does. I’ve reconciled myself to it. It’s more important for me to be with my kids. I don’t know how I could live with myself not being able to participate in my kids’ lives like that. That to me is special. Now I know what my dad felt like when we’d go out there and play nine holes in the dark.
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You were at the center of the public eye when your private life was exposed in 2009. What would you have done differently before and after?
In hindsight, it’s not how I would change 2009 and how it all came about. It would be having a more open, honest relationship with my ex-wife. Having the relationship that I have now with her is fantastic. She’s one of my best friends. We’re able to pick up the phone, and we talk to each other all the time. We both know that the most important things in our lives are our kids. I wish I would have known that back then.
What kept you from knowing that?
Either that’s the position I was in, or I took advantage of opportunities. But, when it comes down to it, right down to it, it’s just having a more open, honest relationship with my ex-wife when we were married. Our frustrations would have come out if we had talked about it and been open and honest with each other. Which we are now, and it’s absolutely fantastic.
You tried to make it work for a while.
It was too tough, too tough. But now, in hindsight, as years and years have gone by, we’re like best friends. It’s fun. She talks to me about her life, I talk to her about my life. We try and help each other out on all occasions. And we work through it with the kids, the parenting program. She is one of my best friends now, and it’s all because of my kids. We’ve worked so hard, and I’ve shown her how much I love them. We’ve worked so hard at co-parenting, to make sure that their lives are fantastic. For instance, I’ve told her this, I’ve taken the initiative with the kids, and told them up front, “Guys, the reason why we’re not in the same house, why we don’t live under the same roof, Mommy and Daddy, is because Daddy made some mistakes.” I just want them to understand before they get to Internet age and they log on to something or have their friends tell them something. I want it to come from me so that when they come of age, I’ll just tell them the real story. But meanwhile, it’s just, “Hey, Daddy made some mistakes. But it’s O.K. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. But look what happened at the end of it. Look at how great you are. You have two loving parents that love you no matter what.” And I said, “You have no idea how lucky you guys are, to have two parents that love you so much. Unfortunately, we’re not in the same house, but the flip side is we love you no matter what you do. And I’m a parent, as the dad, who is always going to try to help you, guide you through life.” And so, that’s part of the initiative, hey, it was my fault too. I was to blame, and so I’m taking initiative with the kids. I’d rather have it come from me, as the source. And I can tell them absolutely everything, so they hear it from me.
It sounds like you’ve done a lot of reflection.
I think it’s the nature of golf, too.
It’s the most private sport played publicly.
One hundred percent agree. Think of how many hours a professional golfer has spent on the range, by himself, or chipping green by himself, or putting green by himself. Whereas other team sports, you’re always with a teammate. It’s a totally different atmosphere and a totally different mind-set. We can be loners and never see anybody.
Is part of being a champion being selfish?
I think every great champion who has ever lived would say, yeah, they’re selfish in certain aspects. That’s how you got there. You had to put in extra time in the weight room, extra time running and running, extra time recovering, extra time running their plays or hitting shots or doing the things that other people didn’t do. Why do you do it? Yeah, you wanted to become better. But there’s a cost.
Beyond the physical toll, can that hurt relationships?
Yeah.
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It’s always been said that one of the things that has driven you is Jack’s 18 majors. [Jack Nicklaus set the career record for major victories between 1962 and 1986.] If your career stopped now, that’s obviously out of the question.
I don’t want it to happen. Without a doubt. I do not. With all my heart, I do not want to stop playing golf. But the flip side is, my kids’ lives are much more important to me. Now, if I can do both, that is an ideal world. It’s a win-win. If I can only do one, it wouldn’t be golf. It would be my kids. That’s still a win-win.
You sound like you’re not driven as much by records as we might think. Yet you had Jack’s 18 majors on your bedroom wall as a kid. Is there a misconception about what drives you?
O.K., here’s the major misconception that people have all gotten wrong. It’s what was posted on my wall, about Jack’s records. It was not the majors, O.K.. There was one on there. It was the first time he broke 40, the first time he broke 80, the first golf tournament he ever won, first time he ever won the state amateur, first time he won the U.S. Amateur, and the first time he won the U.S. Open. That was it. That was the list. It was all age-related. To me, that was important. This guy’s the best out there and the best of all time. If I can beat each age that he did it, then I have a chance at being the best.
Have you beaten most of those?
I beat them all. I beat them all. [Note: Woods never did win the California Amateur championship.]
So the one left isn’t the one that was on the wall, the 18 majors.
No, just what I told you, all age-related, the first time he did this, this, this and this. His first major win was the U.S. Open. Mine was the Masters.
What is the ultimate criterion for deciding on who is the best ever?
You can’t compare eras. You really can’t. It’s like, O.K., who’s the better [pro basketball] center: Bill Russell or Shaq? You just can’t say who was the best because the game has changed so much. Jack crossed so many eras because he played for so long, and he was in contention for so long. The same could be said for Sam Snead. How many eras did he play through? He ended up winning, what, at 54, when he won at Greensboro? I think you have to be able to say you’ve played in so many different eras, and I have. Most of my friends are on the senior tour now, the guys I grew up playing with, my compatriots.
What’s it like for you sitting and not being able to compete against the current crop? I don’t think you’ve played against any of them at full strength.
I haven’t. It’s interesting to see how the game has changed. In today’s game you don’t have to make cuts. And I see these guys miss so many cuts when they’re that good. To go out five times in a year and miss cuts, I just don’t see that. It doesn’t compute, because I haven’t done it. I think I’ve missed only 15 cuts in my career.
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But you don’t want to hurt yourself either.
And I have. I pushed through it. When I enter a tournament, my intent is to win. And even though I’m banged up, or whatever it is, that’s also been one of my problems, that I have had the ability to block out pain and play through it. It’s been a good thing and a bad thing.
How has it been a bad thing?
It’s made injuries worse. I’ve paid the price. If you look at the U.S. Open in ’08, I played on no ACL, I’d ruptured my ACL in ’07, but I still won five of the last six tournaments I played that year, and the following year, I played six tournaments, I won four and finished second in the Masters. And so, understand that I can play through it, and I can still win, I can be successful, but along the way I’m just doing damage.
Did your doctors say that you shouldn’t play in the 2008 U.S. Open?
Everybody said the same thing. I said, it’s at Torrey [Torrey Pines golf course in San Diego, where Woods had won six PGA Tour events] and I’m playing. I’m going back to work. The funniest story ever, though, is that before that U.S. Open, I’m playing at Big Canyon—which was my home course in Southern Cal [Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach]—and I went out on the back nine. It was the first time I had played a round of golf—I hadn’t played a round since the Masters. I hadn’t walked a golf course yet until I get to the Monday of the U.S. Open, when I first walked nine holes. And I tried to play with this knee brace on, and we’ve tried, I don’t know how many, umpteen different types of knee braces, lengths, size, cuts, I tried them all, all different companies.
Well, the problem was, knee braces don’t allow you to rotate—a golf swing, you need to rotate. So I went out and played nine holes. I think I’m a pretty good golfer—you know what, I think I’m a damn good golfer—but when I went out there on my home course and I lost eight balls in nine holes. I shot 54, not long before the U.S. Open, and I’m grinding my butt off, and I said, O.K., you’re the No. 1 player in the world, and you just lost eight balls on a home course that you could play blindfolded, and I shot a 54. This is going to be an interesting week.
Did you feel things starting to improve, that you could handle the pain?
Yeah. That’s when I could feel the break a couple of times, and it hurt.
Did you ever consider, I can’t do it?
No, no. First of all, I didn’t want to show anybody that I was hurt. You never want to show your competitors that you’re hurt. I don’t want them to get that mental edge, Oh, he’s down. You always pick yourself right back up. That’s what I’ve tried to do my entire career: not show that I am hurt. Play through it.
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How do you keep up the intensity through all these injuries?
That is probably the most satisfying, because I think anyone can win when they’re playing great golf, when they’re at a level where everything is going well. That’s easy. But trying to dog out a win when it’s just not there, it’s really hard. It’s hard on the mind. Sometimes it can be very hard on the body, when the body’s not working right. For me, I rely a lot on the past, remembering shots and situations. But also understanding at that particular moment where I need to miss the ball, where I need to place the ball, putts that I remember breaking certain ways, how this putt was on this particular green because it was wet, what it did. All those things, my memory comes back to really help me. As I’ve gotten older and gotten more experienced, if the golf course hasn’t changed, I can tell you a lot of putts and shots, what they do. If you go to a course like St. Andrew’s, where they haven’t touched it, I can tell you all the breaks. Even though there are a lot of them, I can tell you what each one does. I think my mind has probably been my greatest asset.
If you look back, can you say what your best moment was?
I’m shocked at how many tournaments I’ve won, in hindsight, now that I’m laid up. More than 100 around the world. Playing through it, you really don’t realize it. If you’re in a team sport, you don’t realize how many games you’ve won. It just piles up on you. I wouldn’t think that [Tom] Brady right now knows how many games he’s won. You just play, you get ready for the next week, you’re in that moment. You’re always getting ready, always getting ready, always getting ready. Well, I can’t get ready for anything. O.K.? So it gives you a chance to step back and look at it from a grander scale, from 30,000 ft. And how my foundation has grown. We’re looking at expanding internationally. To be able to call up Condi Rice and say, “How do we do this?” She says, “O.K., what country is involved?” She can work with the embassies there, the universities. Those are conversations I couldn’t have when I was younger. I didn’t earn the right to be able to have the conversations. But now it’s legitimate. We’re in our 20th year. We have $100 million in endowment, that’s pretty good.
Do you think about your legacy?
The greatest thing that could happen is to not be remembered. What I mean by that is, the kids right now, they don’t know that Michael Jordan played. They see a Jumpman [logo] and they think, that’s so cool. I’m talking young kids, really young kids, single digits in age, they have no idea who Michael Jordan was, but the Jumpman logo is cool. Now, for me, they don’t understand who that is. My learning center, kids go through it and they don’t know who I am. They don’t know what I’ve done. But it’s a safe haven for them to learn and grow.
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Did you begin to see this after you turned pro, or earlier?
I didn’t play for any attention. I played for the hardware. I wanted to know that I beat everyone in this field, and I wanted them to know that they got their butt kicked. That to me was the absolute pure pleasure of competing. But then, I got noticed for that. But when I first started playing, I was a little kid, say, in the nine and unders, and 11 and under, there was nobody there, but I still want to kick your butt. That never changed. Then people started to take notice of those wins. But I had been doing it since I was very little. By the time I was 11 years old, I had already won 113 tournaments. I peaked at 11, to be honest with you. I went 36 and 0 that year, never lost a tournament, all in California. And I probably had the cutest girlfriend in all of sixth grade. And I had straight As. No A-minuses. They were all perfect A’s. I peaked at 11. I’ve been trying to get back to that since.
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You’re coming up to your 40th birthday. Can you honestly see yourself at the top again?
Absolutely. I have to get healthy in order to do it, though. I don’t think I’ll ever be 100% healthy, but as close as you can to that point, that would be nice. As long as I don’t have the pain, then I don’t think there would be an issue. I will probably play through a little bit of pain, aches and pains, as you get older, you have more aches and pains. But I don’t need another surgery, period. Let’s just not go down that road ever again. No more surgeries. Seven’s enough. Four knees, three backs, that’s enough.
