Tiger Woods is the bookies' favourite for the Masters. But judging from his recent dealings with journalists he still has some way to go on the comeback trail
Tiger Woods is back, according to the snappy but inadequate shorthand of those whose job it is to interpret narrow sporting narratives for a wider audience. As is usually the case when it comes to the man who was at once the most celebrated and the most unknown athlete in the world, the truth is more complex.
Certainly, Woods is back among the best half-a-dozen or so of the world's best golfers. He is back in the winner's circle after beating the field at the PGA Tour's Bay Hill Invitational last month, his first official victory anywhere in the world for almost two and a half years. And this week he is back at Augusta National Golf Club to compete in the Masters, for which he is the bookies' favourite. But for the Tiger Woods of old, the sporting demi-god and global corporate icon, the journey back is only just beginning.
Two years ago Woods arrived at Augusta for his first tournament appearance since the minor car crash outside his Florida home that set in train a scandal that consumed his reputation, his image, and ultimately his marriage. He was visibly chastened during a press conference televised around the world, apologising to his fans, his sponsors and even to sports journalists before him, many of whom, he said, he "considered friends". This was news to the journalists whom, with one of two exceptions, he had treated with contempt for years.
Nevertheless, his performance was met with generally positive reviews, though not from Augusta National's chairman Billy Payne. "It's not simply the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here. It is the fact he disappointed all of us and more importantly our kids and grandkids. Our hero did not live up to the expectations as a role model that we sought for our children,'' Payne said in his pre-tournament address a couple of days later, evoking visions of a Southern gent dressing down the hired domestic help.
That the chairman of an all-male golf club with a long history of discriminating against minorities would lecture anyone about "egregious conduct" was enough to evoke sympathy for the golfer. Alas, it did not last long. After a frankly astonishing effort which saw him finish fourth in his comeback, Woods gave a short interview to the American television that appalled many.
"I asked Tiger open-ended questions that would allow him to say whatever he wanted – it's good to back, the fans were great, Augusta was wonderful – but he chose to go another route,'' says Peter Kostis of CBS television, the journalist who conducted the interview.
Very diplomatic. But in its own way the interview revealed far more than Kostis could have hoped or Woods might have wished for. What the golfer said was not revealing. But the curtness and lack of grace with which he said it mostly certainly was. At the very least it begged the questions: had scandal really humbled the world's most famously fallen athlete? Was he really sincere when he said he wanted to become a "better person"?
Fast forward two years and the answer seems clear to many. When it was revealed earlier this year that his former swing coach Hank Haney had written a book chronicling their time together, Woods was quick to express his disappointment. Just how disappointed he really was only became clear later, when he was asked in Florida last month about excerpts from the book which painted him as an oddball who was obsessed with the US military.
Pressed by one journalist, Woods battled to keep his composure before meeting his inquisitor's gaze. "You're a beauty, you know that,'' he said in a tone that made clear he felt the opposite. This was the starkest manifestation of Woods' current relationship with the media, which if anything is now worse than it ever was.
In fairness, he has good reason to feel upset with Haney's book, which reveals details of the golfer's relationship with his former wife Elin Nordegren picked up while the author was enjoying their hospitality. But in reverting to his old habits of evasiveness and ill-concealed contempt, Woods has alienated the one consistency that might help restore his reputation and more importantly, at least to his financial advisers, his "brand". As one major championship winner who knows Woods well told friends after the most infamous exchange: "Tiger just doesn't get it.
He only needs to give a little and people would look at him differently."
Woods and his former wife Elin divorced in August 2010. These days he lives in a $50m home on Jupiter Island, Florida. The house was designed for the couple when they were still together. It has two swimming pools, a four-hole golf course in the back garden and looks, according to one architectural critic, like a discount motel. Woods has joined the Medallist, an exclusive local club where he shot the course record of 62 last year. He has shared custody of the couple's two children, Charlie and Sam. If his tone softens in a press conference it is usually because he is speaking about the time he spends with them.
After the scandal he retained his long-serving agent, Mark Steinberg, and sacked his caddie, Steve Williams, after the New Zealander worked for another player while Woods was recovering from injury. Williams' place was taken temporarily by Bryon Bell, the president of his golf course design company and a friend since childhood.
At the peak of his fame and celebrity Woods made stringent efforts to maintain his privacy – the name he gave his yacht, lest anyone be in doubt. Since the scandal he has slipped back into the same world of relative anonymity, leaving the gossip pages to Nordegren, whose own private life is frequently examined by the likes of TMZ and the New York Post's Page Six.
More transparent has been the conduct of his business affairs. In the immediate aftermath of his scandal, several of his main sponsors, the likes of AT&T and Accenture, ripped up multimillion dollar contracts, citing their "disappointment" over his conduct.
Even those firms that remained loyal were noticeably cooler. The gaming company EA Sports took Woods' image off their "Tiger Woods PGA Tour" game – he's back on the box this year, albeit alongside Rory McIlroy – while Nike, which built an entire brand of golf equipment off the back of his endorsement, no longer features him prominently in their adverts. This distancing has its roots in metrics like the Q-Scores ratings, which measure the US public's perceptions of athletes. From being the most admired sports personality in the country, Woods has become one of the least admired, ranking alongside the NFL football player Michael Vick, who spent time in prison for running a dogfight ring.
There have been other setbacks, most notably with his golf course design business. Once considered by advisers to be his most reliable and lucrative source of income for decades to come (in 2008, he was paid $55m up front to "design" a course in Dubai) it is now in abeyance, a victim of Woods' fall from grace and the collapse in the market for high-end golf resorts. The course in Dubai has been abandoned, while the only other two courses bearing his name have yet to be built.
The news has not been unremittingly bad, however. Steinberg has been able to attract a trickle of new sponsors, albeit of the less exalted kind. Where once Woods would associate himself with brand-name companies, these days he has popped up in campaigns to sell, among other things, Japanese heat rub.
A new deal with Rolex was hailed by his agent as a huge step forward, though it later emerged that Woods would join another 20 golfers as a "brand ambassador" and not as the main corporate pitchman. Meanwhile, the long search to put a sponsor's name on his golf bag – once considered the most visible advertising hoarding in golf – ended with a deal being signed with an unknown energy drinks company called Fuse, not for the reported asking price of $5m but in an equity deal that reportedly gives the golfer a share in the company.
Reports circulating last summer that Woods had money problems seem wide of the mark but, nevertheless, there was no disguising that his days of naming his own price and getting it were over. Steinberg has remained confident in public. "I think we live in a society that is about second chances. And if he conducts himself the way he has been, continues his rehabilitation and performs on the golf course, I do believe he'll be back where he was before,'' he said when asked about the Tiger Woods "brand".
He would say that, of course, but his optimism is not entirely baseless. Never underestimate the willingness of the American public to forgive a winning athlete, even one who appears indifferent to what people think of him.
When the former world No 1 played his way into contention and then won at Bay Hill two weeks ago, his presence at the top of the leaderboard produced a staggering increase in TV ratings – up almost 130% on the year before. When he walked down the 18th fairway that Sunday afternoon he was greeted by crowds who were clearly ecstatic to have their hero back.
The message was clear – Tiger was back in the fold. But equally as clear is that the Bay Hill Invitational is a niche event, watched in the most part by a small but devoted band of golf lovers. The week's Masters on the other hand is one of world's top sporting events, watched by millions around the world, many of whom wouldn't know the difference between sand wedge and a sandwich. This is the territory upon which Woods built his legend and his "brand", winning here four times in the good old days.
If the bookies are right, and he wins his fifth Masters on Sunday night, then it safe to say the legend will be restored and a new brand will be launched: Tiger Woods – the comeback kid.
Potted profile
Born: 30 December, 1975; Cypress, CaliforniaCareer to date: Looked destined to rewrite golf's record books ever since appearing on an American chat show with Bob Hope aged two. Despite a dodgy knee, his path to outdoing the legendary Jack Nicklaus seemed secure until a bizarre car crash in November 2009 sparked career implosion.
High point: Winning the 2001 Masters, meaning he held all four major championships at the same time.
Low point: Ritual public humiliation amid endless media revelations about his marital infidelities.
He says: "I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply."
They say: "[His characteristics included] selfishness, obsessiveness, stubbornness, coldness, ruthlessness, pettiness and cheapness" – former coach Hank Haney
