The Nesham Story
Gavin Newsham is a journalist, editor, and author with 30 years’ experience covering golf for publications including GQ, The Guardian, The New York Post, and Golf Digest.
His first book, Letting The Big Dog Eat, a biography of golfer John Daly, earned him the Best New Writer Award at the National Sporting Club Book Awards. He has also written critically-acclaimed works on the Ryder Cup and Ian Poulter.
A regular contributor to Golf Monthly and Golf World, Newsham is also the co-founder of Golf Punk magazine.
The Nesham Journey
When I decide to write a book about one of the most famous sports stars that has ever existed, there were many moments when I wondered whether it was worth it. On one hand, it is extremely useful having such a wealth of readily available resources to call upon, especially when the subject’s life has been so heavily documented but, on the other it can prove difficult when trying to unearth something new or different to the received wisdom.
It’s why I chose to focus on Tiger’s childhood, his college days and his spectacular amateur career. Yes, they’ve been touched upon in many of the other books about Woods but none have been specifically dedicated to these crucial years. It’s also why the book ends when Tiger turns pro at the Greater Milwaukee Open in August 1996.
What emerges, I hope, is a picture of a kid whose dysfunctional and stage-managed childhood (if, indeed, he had a childhood) not only shaped the player he became but also the man too. Yes, Tiger’s complex and painful trade-offs in the pursuit of greatness helped him rise to unparalleled achievements on the golf course but away from the sport he loved, did his success somehow dehumanize and immiserate him?
Of course, the genius of Tiger Woods is behind dispute, but this story is to understand the price he paid for it.
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When you were about to get started on writing Project Tiger did you have any presumptions that were both confirmed or disproven?
Yes, I knew that Tiger had been groomed for success since a very early age and that his parents, especially his father, drove him to greatness.
But what I didn’t know was the true extent of just how his formative years were never his own.
What is one specific aspect you did not know about the 15-time major winner prior to starting the research for the book?
The almost total disregard and disinterest shown in him at his father’s club, The Navy Club in Los Alamitos, despite being the greatest junior golfer in the world.
They really didn’t want to know him, restricting his use of the facilities and even rejecting his offer to display his US Junior Amateur trophy for the other members.
White kids didn’t receive the same treatment and if it wasn’t for the brave assistant club pro Joe Grohman, who took him under his wing and protected him as much as he could, it could have made an indelible and deleterious impact on his young golf game.
The key premise is that Woods was really two different people – the extremely talented golfer juxtaposed as a man with little skill or inclination in cultivating meaningful relationships. Was such a split dynamic inevitable given the nature of his parents in pushing him on the golf front?
I think so.
Many people I spoke to that knew Tiger growing up said that he didn’t have a normal childhood whatsoever and didn’t have many close friends at all. I think that comes down to his father pushing his golf and his mother driving him academically.
He simply didn’t have the time to invest in relationships with others, even as a child and teenager, and to learn about interaction and empathy and all of those key elements that go into being a well-rounded individual.
Given all Tiger has gone through, do you see him now as a 50-year-old reflecting back on any specific outcome and if he could relive it to change what happened?
If I were Tiger I might have surrounded myself with different people.
I simply refuse to believe that nobody else in his team knew what he was up to in his private life in the years leading up to the scandal breaking in 2009.
Maybe if he had then someone could have warned him and we would now be here taking about Tiger beating Jack’s majors record and being the undisputed greatest player of all time.
The book features quotes from a number of people but none from Tiger. Did you make outreaches to him and if so what was that process like?
I’ve spent years trying to get to Tiger and getting nowhere so I knew it would be a non-starter.
As I write in the book’s introduction, getting to Tiger is like trying to complete a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded – it is possible, but you’ll probably be wasting a lot of your time.
If you had one question to ask him directly – what would it have been?
Are you happy?
It might just be me, but it seems as though he cuts quite a sad figure in the years since the scandal.
Yes, there have been moments when the old Tiger suddenly reappears – the 2018 Tour Championship win and the following year’s Masters – but it’s not often you see him smile.
Earl and Kultida were portrayed in the book as different people with different desires in how to raise Tiger. How would you characterize their efforts in building an extraordinary human golf robot but one lacking in other critical dimensions?
Between the two of them, they formed a formidable backroom team for young Tiger and certainly succeeded in creating a talent unlike any other in the game.
It’s off the course where they were perhaps found wanting.
As a Buddhist, his mother Tida tried to instil self-control, discipline and respect but Earl’s verbosity and his own sexual proclivities, not only embarrassed Tiger but I suspect did long-standing damage.
Given how Tiger was raised, do you believe he learned anything from that time when deciding how to raise his two children — Charlie and Sam?
Yes and no.
Given that Sam and Charlie were just two and nine months old when news of their father’s infidelity emerged in 2009, you would think that might have been the death knell for their relationship but Tiger appears to have a lovely relationship with his children, despite everything, and that’s great to see.
Also, you look at how he’s dealt with Charlie and his golf. He’s really good but you never hear Tiger making the same ridiculous predictions and proclamations about him as his father did with him.
Yes, they might play a tournament together every now and then but they remain very private – and that’s the way it should be.
Curious to know – Project Tiger does not include reference to the 1997 GQ interview by Charles Pierce. Was that something you considered including or not given the Pierce interview took place shortly after Woods turned professional but before his epic win at Augusta in April of 1997.
Obviously, I’m aware of it – who isn’t?
But the book ends when Tiger turns pro in Milwaukee August 1996. Perhaps I’ll begin the follow-up book with it?
Given his standoff nature with media — do you believe Tiger sees media as an enemy and one instinctively he keeps an arms reach away?
I spoke to Hughes Norton, Tiger’s first agent at IMG and the man who cut those multi-million dollar deals with Nike and Titleist and he said that Tiger would only ever give people the absolute minimum amount of time that he had to, including sponsors and the media.
I can’t blame him to be honest.
He’s spent his entire life in the limelight, often without a say in the matter, and probably figures that there’s nothing good that can come from it.
How do you explain the public acceptance of Tiger even after the fraudulent manipulations and the public humiliation caused to his then wife Erin and family?
I get that his fellow players love him – he’s changed their lives and livelihoods beyond recognition – but the way the public still worship him is really revealing.
I guess it’s genuine star power – it has that effect.
Look at when he gave that press conference in February 2010, broadcast live across the country, to apologize for his infidelity. It wasn’t a President or a Prime Minister standing there – it was a pro golfer. That’s how big he was.
You highlight the final match in the 1996 US Amateur between Woods and Steve Scott. In a critical point in that match, Scott reminds Tiger to re-mark his ball to its original position prior to putting. If the situation were reversed would Tiger have acted in a similar manner or was it always with him win at any costs?
I suspect not. Earl Woods trained him to be a ‘cold-blooded golf assassin’ and that’s what he was, even from an early age.
Ruthlessness had been hard-wired into him.
Curious to your thoughts – do you see Tiger accepting the captaincy for the USA Ryder Cup team in Ireland in ’27 and do you see him playing at a competitive level on the Champions Tour?
I have a feeling he will take the captaincy and it helps that he has a long-standing friendship with JP McManus, the owner of Adare Manor. His Ryder Cup record isn’t even average, though. It’s dreadful for someone as good as him but if he does take it, nobody will care.
As for the Champions Tour, well, I can’t see it. His body is ravaged by injuries and surgeries and even though you can use a cart on the circuit, I simply can’t picture him teeing it up on anything like a regular basis.
Besides, it’s not like he needs the money.
*Editor’s note: The response above from Mr. Nesham came prior to the March 27 arrest of Tiger Woods in Jupiter, FL.
In 50 years from now what do you think the assessment of Tiger Woods will be by historians?
I don’t think it will change markedly from what we all think now.
That is, a generational talent who transformed the face of professional golf forever and redefined just what was possible on a golf course.
But, sadly, inevitably, there will always be the question of ‘what might have been’.
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To purchase Project Tiger: The Birth of Genius and the Price of Greatness click HERE
