On Thanksgiving Day 2009 we first learned of Tiger Woods’ personal sex life. I will never forget sitting at my sister’s house in North Raleigh and seeing a news update scroll across the bottom of the TV screen. The NFL had teams playing that night but that went to the back burner as sports fans all of the world had no idea what was going on in Windermere, Florida. The bottom ticker read “Tiger Woods has been hospitalized after a car crash, more news to come.”
At that moment I didn’t even know if Tiger Woods was alive. Back in 2009 I hadn’t even picked up a golf club but I knew how importance Tiger was to the game of golf. In fact, I had watched his run of seven straight wins and the US Open win at Torrey Pines on a broken leg. I was not aware of the true skill that Tiger had because I didn’t start slicing the ball around until March 2010.
As I sat watching Sportscenter I had no idea what to believe. At the time I had an iPhone 3GS so I picked it up and started searching to see what I could find. As always, in this type of event, the news was all over the place. Some websites were reporting that Tiger was in critical condition while other websites were reporting that he was fine and would be playing golf the next week. In this day and age of Internet news you never really know what to believe.
The night wore on and I still did not have answers. There was news that was starting to come out about Rachel Uchitel. After we learned about Rachel Uchitel other women started to surface. Knowing what I knew about professional athletes I knew this was going to be a complete shit storm. Compound that with the fact that Tiger always portrayed the holier than thou image and you have a complete debacle ready to happen.
I honestly cannot remember how many girls we found out about in the first night but I know it was a handful. Shortly after the domestic situation between Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren we learned that Elin found out because of the National Enquirer cover story about Tiger Woods and his mistress Rachel Uchitel. Shortly after Thanksgiving the “text messages” started to surface on the Internet. At that point you knew Tiger Woods was going to have quite the story to tell.
For years I have said that I would absolutely love to hear the Tiger Woods story from the man himself. I know this will never happen. I have read as many books as possible from those that have known Tiger or were in the Tiger camp. Unfortunately, these stories and books leave a lot to the imagination. Having known professional athletes and hedge fund managers I can tell you that the lifestyle is quite unbelievable. Even some of the stories I tell are so far beyond normal that most think I am lying.
If I know these stories I cannot imagine the stories Tiger Woods has. Just from the text messages and the sheer number of women that have come clean, I would imagine Tiger has some benders he could bring to the table. After reading the Hank Haney book “The Big Miss” I am reassured that we will never know the real story of Tiger Woods. We will get bits and pieces here and there but no one will know what happened behind closed doors.
Even the girls he spend nights with have no idea what Tiger does or did in his free time. We get a brief glimpse of Tiger Woods’ personality on the golf course but that is not enough to get inside the walls of his life. When Tiger drops an F bomb or slams a pitching wedge to the ground we know that Tiger has a very strong personality with anger issues. These types of men are extremely manipulative with women and tend to get what they want using any method possible.
Compound that with the fact that Tiger Woods receives over $50 million in endorsements every year and you have a modern day Don Juan. Even after the sex clinic in Mississippi I would imagine Tiger is still having his nights of fun in random cities throughout the world. I have said it before and I will say it again, “If Tiger wants to live that life, good for him. Just do not get married or have children.”
The Thanksgiving Night fiasco five years ago was the downfall of Tiger Woods’ golf game. He has not won a major since and most would agree that he has no chance of catching Jack Nicklaus. After the sex clinic in Mississippi Tiger has not been the same golfer. Even Hank Haney has stated that Tiger does not have the winning desire he once had. Only time will tell, but Tiger will likely never be the same golfer.
