Disclaimer – this commentary is just about Part 1 of the documentary film ‘Tiger’ on HBO, Part 2 is not available yet.
I was an extremely active kid growing up. It was a way for me to make friends, fit in with the other kids at school, and assert my physical dominance over the other children (I may have blossomed earlier than a lot of my friends). It was also a way for me to bond with my father, who played 3 sports in college and lit up while watching me play basketball unlike anything else in his life. He wanted to live vicariously through me and relive his glory days. My dad would often use basketball as a way to teach me life lessons, things like how to accept failure graciously, how to be part of something bigger than yourself, how to work together collaboratively as a team, and how to keep your cool under pressure. But one particular lesson will always stand out to me. When I was 10 years old, I was playing basketball, baseball, and swimming and clearly spreading myself thin. He took me to dinner and had a frank conversation with me. “The only way you are going to be great at something is if you focus all your efforts into it. You have to pick one sport if you want any chance of making it.” This same lesson was reinforced to me in middle school, when I complained to my basketball coach (love you, Coach Savittiere) about not being able to hang out with my friends because of a basketball tournament I had to go to over the weekend, a very common occurence. “Nothing great comes without hard work. You have to make sacrifices if you want to reach your goals.”
Ultimately, this is what “Tiger” is about. It isn’t a story about golf. It isn’t a story about celebrity. It isn’t a story about greatness. It isn’t even really a story about a father and son relationship, despite how important that is to the narrative propulsion of the series. It is a story about what we have to sacrifice in order to be great. And for Tiger, it cost him everything.
Tiger’s dad, Earl Woods, takes “living vicariously” to a whole new level. You can almost see him will his son’s greatness into being. You can taste how bad he wants it. But the tremendous amount of pressure he placed on his son ruined any chance Tiger had at living a normal life. He legitimately believed that Tiger was going to be a bigger deal than Jesus, which is a lot to live up to as a 2-year old. And we see the relentless determination that Tiger had in order to pursue this goal. He didn’t just want to be great. He didn’t just want to be the best that ever played. He wanted to crush people. He wanted to erase any doubt about who the greatest golfer of all time was. The beauty, and the horror, of this documentary is witnessing the transformation of a young, shy, and gifted kid into the career destroying super nova that is Tiger Woods and the price he had to pay to get there. Tiger seems like an inevitability now, but he was anything but. He was a multi-racial tiger amongst a community of lily white elephants, breaking down barriers in a sport hell bent on upkeeping tradition. And he had to work his ass off and sacrifice tremendously to get there.
The most illumining and fun parts of the documentary for me were seeing Tiger amongst his friends, laughing, goofily dancing, and playing dress up. It humanized him for me in a way that I didn’t expect and pulled back the curtain on what could have been. What would have happened if his mom and dad didn’t place a vice grip on his life? If he decided to play piano instead? What about if he cared about being great, but not the greatest and spent 10% less energy on golf, and 10% more on his relationships? I wonder if you were to ask him in his heart of hearts, if he has any regrets in his pursuit of immortality. Was it worth it?
At the end of the day, we all have to ask ourselves that same question. Is it worth it? Do I sacrifice my relationships, my free time, my pursuit of other hobbies, in order to be great? I know that I never had it in me, at least when it came to sports. I worked hard, but I valued other things more in life. Like the relationships I built while playing sports that continue 20+ years later. I know that I wouldn’t trade those friendships for the world, even if it meant I got to be the greatest. Would you?
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