Tiger Woods

Publisher's Summary

Based on three years of extensive research and reporting, two of today's most acclaimed investigative journalists, Jeff Benedict of Sports Illustrated and 11-time Emmy Award winner Armen Keteyian, deliver the first major biography of Tiger Woods - sweeping in scope and packed with groundbreaking, behind-the-scenes details of the Shakespearean rise and epic fall of an American icon.

In 2009, Tiger Woods was the most famous athlete on the planet, a transcendent star of almost unfathomable fame and fortune living what appeared to be the perfect life - married to a Swedish beauty and the father of two young children. Winner of 14 major golf championships and 79 PGA Tour events, Woods was the first billion-dollar athlete, earning more than $100 million a year in endorsements from the likes of Nike, Gillette, AT&T, and Gatorade.

But it was all a carefully crafted illusion. As it turned out, Woods had been living a double life for years - one that exploded in the aftermath of a Thanksgiving night crash that exposed his serial infidelity and sent his personal and professional life off a cliff. In Tiger Woods, Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, the team behind the recent New York Times best seller The System, dig deep behind the headlines to produce a richly reported answer to the question that has mystified millions of sports fans for nearly a decade: Who is Tiger Woods?

Drawing on more than 400 interviews with people from every corner of Woods' life - friends, family members, teachers, romantic partners, swing coaches, business associates, Tour pros, and members of Woods' inner circle - Benedict and Keteyian construct a captivating psychological profile of an African American child programmed by an attention-grabbing father and the original Tiger Mom to be the "chosen one", to change not just the game of golf but the world as well. But at what cost? Benedict and Keteyian provide the starling answers in a biography destined to make headlines and linger in the minds of listeners for years to come.

©2018 Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio

A Balanced Look at One of Golf's Greatest

For this major biography of Tiger Woods, the authors completed more than 400 interviews over a three-year period. Woods declined to participate with the project after the authors refused the conditions Woods and his team imposed on them. Still, fans of Woods will find this to be an interesting, and I believe fair, look at his life thus far.
Everyone knows Woods’ golf accomplishments, so I will focus on what readers may hope to gain from reading this book that they can’t get in previously published books about Woods. We have to start with Wood’s family, and primarily his father Earl. His parents were the only people Tiger could trust, for him, family was everything. Unfortunately, it was a dysfunctional family that he grew up in. Earl cheated on his first wife with Tiger’s mother, actually marrying her a few years before he was divorced from his first wife. In addition, Earl is portrayed as a father who took advantage of his son’s talent to benefit financially, and at least bent the rules on how to finance his travels to amateur tournaments. In addition to infidelity, Earl had vices of alcohol and porn. Unfortunately, some of those vices were passed on to Tiger. Earl would often interject race into interviews, while Tiger tended to avoid the subject. We are told that Earl is buried in an unmarked grave.
We read about a four-year relationship (in high school and college) that Tiger had with Deana, which was abruptly broken off, and another relationship he had prior to marriage. He had his first knee surgery while in college at Stanford.
We hear about Tiger’s conflict with members of the media, primarily John Feinstein and Jimmy Roberts, and his friendship with golfer and neighbor Mark O’Meara and his family.
Especially after he turned professional, Tiger was always under a microscope. Everyone wanted a piece of him and he made millions in endorsements. We hear about his increasing rudeness, failure to tip in restaurants and gambling in Las Vegas with Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan. The book addresses his obsession with working out and becoming a member of the Navy Seals.
Woods was married to Elin Nordegren for six years. The book spends a lot of time on his well-documented fall from grace, detailing his cheating on her, often times with multiple women at the same time while she was caring for their two young children at home. Woods was living a lie as a sex addict. The authors point out that he interestingly played some of his best golf when his personal life was out of control.
The authors state that Woods was in a dark place after Earl’s death. He became surlier with the media and would eventually become addicted to sleeping pills and pain medication. They address rumors whether he took PEDs (performance enhancing drugs), offering testimony from those close to him.
The book details his work with swing coaches such as Butch Harmon and Hank Haney, and in more recent years his injuries, surgeries and missed cuts. It ends with his return to competitive golf in early 2018 and his desire to be a good father to his two children.
The book contains a significant amount of adult language, much of it quotes from Woods. Golf fans, particularly fans of Woods will be interested in this well-researched and written book.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

Fascinating subject, solid writing, meh audiobook

I grew up one of the biggest Tiger fans you'll ever meet. I've cheered for him since he first came up on tour, and I still think he's one of the most impressive athletes we'll ever get to witness. That's why I was so excited to listen to this book and get to know more about the man I've idolized for most of my life.

The picture painted by the authors differs from the picture I had painted in my mind. Obviously they did a lot more research into him than I ever have, and there's some pretty inexcusable things that he's done in his life that they documented well. That being said, I felt like they oftentimes merely alluded to the great aspects of Tiger, but never dug in deep to that side of the man. Instead, they spent the majority of the book poking holes in his legendary status and making him look like an immature weirdo. Now maybe that is truly who he is, but there's plenty of accounts to the contrary that I've seen other places which never received any attention in the book.

When it comes to the audiobook performance, this was the most uneven reading I've ever experienced. There were times when three consecutive sentences were clearly all recorded at different times. The voice intonations, volume levels, and and tone of the reader would change much too sporadically for my liking.

All in all, I was captured by this book and tore through it, but wasn't that impressed by the quality of it when I finished.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

I couldn't stop listening!!

Narration is half the battle with audiobooks. This book was the best narrated book I've ever heard. Written beautifully and researched relentlessly, this book has all the emotions you could desire. Tiger Woods's story is already an interesting one but these authors take you behind the scene of every event in his life.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Invigorating and Polarizing!

Awesome book on the life of Tiger Woods. I found this book to be very polarizing and you end up with a dichotomous feeling of love and hate. In the end you realize that mastery is a key to success, but without balance in your personal relationships may lead to your downfall. However, by recognizing those around you and building good rapport and empathy, Tiger was able to recover full circle.

this book is a must for any golf fan

this book is unbelievable in the way that it covers Tiger Woods life. A must for any golf fan!

Choppy performance

Poor editing and lazy narration. Should have read this one instead of listened. Oh well

Great Story Told

We all know the saga of Tiger Woods, but this books peels back a couple layers that add credibility to rumors and debunk others. A good story told.

Schadenfreude For Non-Fans

If you don't like Tiger Woods, you're going to love "Tiger Woods". If you're a fan of Tiger Woods, "Tiger Woods" will infuriate you. Consider me infuriated. If you're a fan of good gossip and tabloid journalism, you're going to doubly love "Tiger Woods". If you're a fan of good investigative journalism, "Tiger Woods" will infuriate you. Consider me doubly infuriated.

This is a hatchet job that revels in Tiger's downfall while diminishing or demeaning his accomplishments (as much as that is possible given how unassailable some of those accomplishments are), and even tries to invent new scandals out of rumors.

The authors reveal up front that they could not interview anyone with an NDA or anyone who felt close enough to Tiger to ask his permission before talking to them (permission was denied). The authors tell us up front that most of their source material was already out in the public. Most of the people who did talk to the authors had at least one ax to grind. The authors turned down a chance to talk to Tiger because of his onerous demands, even though by that time, Tiger was for the first time ever giving out numerous candid interviews to just about everyone who asked.

Their primary goal, they say, was to present a balanced view of Tiger, but in their world, that means holding up gossip and innuendo against sworn testimony, giving more weight to the former while dismissing the latter (see my full review at Good Reads for detailed examples). Only in their tilted world of hit journalism can Tiger's desire to practice or upgrade his swing, or play through pain to the point of injuring himself, be a moral failing. Totally infuriating.

The narration suffers as well. The glee with which the text tears down Tiger is equally conveyed in how it is read. And it is poorly recorded -- I could hear (at least through my earbuds) every edit, with one sentence spoken differently and at different volume than the preceding or succeeding sentence. For a book to be recorded this poorly in 2018 makes no sense, although you will likely not notice if you listen in a car.

I was looking forward to reading a balanced biography of Tiger Woods. I thought balance would mean tempering the tabloid mentality that caused the feeding frenzy over his personal scandals, which seem kind of tame in today's world where worse behavior does not disqualify people from holding higher office. Instead, we have rehash journalism and gossip mongering masquerading as serious biography. Maybe for those who would enjoy the schadenfreude of listening to Tiger being trashed. But not for me.

Excellent Book!

I love playing golf but never grew up watching golf. That being said I still heard about Tiger Woods. I never knew the incredible and dramatic journey he took for his rise to stardom. This was an excellent read and couldn’t stop listening to his story. I would recommend this to anyone even if you aren’t that into golf or sports for that matter.

Awesome story! The rise, the fall, and humbling

Im not a golf fan at all, but i loved listening to the sciences and strategies Tiger Woods practiced and appealed to my technical side. He was a very unlikable guy throughout the book, but there is still a human side to him and he rose and fell higher and harder than anyone i can think of but still came out as a , hate to say it, a hero.
Very well written book!

Great Insight

For Tiger fans much of the insight isn’t that new, but pulled together well. The books sails past some of his greatest victories and on course duals, focusing on his character and what made him.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Entertaining read

Good book for all golf fans and people interested in how to come back for adversity.

Very insightful to a non golfer

prior to listening, I was completely ignorant to what Tiger Woods'history and what he had g9ne through. This book, although very lengthy gave a really interesting insight into where he came from and how he progressed through his career.

Excellent Book

I started this off thinking it was going them ripping on Tiger but have to say as I got into the book the detail on his life was really excellent. I was happy to see that was an equal of the bad & the good of Tiger. Well worth a listen, you won’t be disappointed

Amazing book... Great guy... With a real human story.. A must read for everyone

Must read... This is such a compelling story. I was hooked !!! Read it now!!!! Thank you the author for the research and commitment

Informative biography of one of golf's greats

Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian's biography of one of modern sport's all time greats is very well researched, informative and balanced. Given the extraordinary and bizarre lengths Woods' legal team has gone to over the years to silence past colleagues, friends and lovers, this is no mean feat.

No doubting Woods' incredible achievements on the world's finest golfing greens, especially 1997-2008. Woods' early life is marked with sadness given how his parents never let him grow up normally, instead spending every waking hour practising golf. His father Earl is depicted as a nasty bully and treats his family very poorly. The cold, emotionless upbringing however does offer a lot of explanation for his rude, often brutal, rejection of friends and colleagues who helped him become 'the Michael Jordan of golf' as soon as he disagrees with them (the Mark O'Meara Hall of Fame snub in 2015 particularly was appalling). It also explains a lot behind his compulsive sex addiction that ruined his marriage and brought down his business empire in 2009.

Although Woods is of course as well known for his sex scandals as his sporting achievements, the biography doesn't dwell too much on that time, and rightly so as he deserves better from history than that. It would have been good to have heard/read more from the authors on Woods' road to redemption to the present day, which is remarkable given the serious back and knee injuries he endured.

The authors' clear writing style ensured that those who are unfamiliar with the sport could read/listen and enjoy this book. There were a lot of excellent biographies written in 2018 and this was certainly one of the better ones.

Thorough research and well presented

If you've grown up watching Woods on the course, this, as background, makes for scintillating reading.

Epic

this book tells the full story about a living legend the good the bad and the ugly

Best Biography to date

Understand the making of the world's best sport man. Unveil the truth behind the world's biggest scandal. By the end, you can't love him whole heartedly, but you will back him achieve the world's most incredible comeback. Can he catch Jack?

a great read

worth a read,it shows tiger woods in a new light and you'll he was really like.