Original subtitles

The following is a presentation of HBO SPORTS.

MOUNTAIN WARFARE TRAINING CENTER

LA POSTA, CA

25 days after Tiger Woods buried his father, Earl,

he went to a military base

where SEALs practice mountain warfare.

A petty officer working with Tiger asked him,

"Why is the greatest golfer running around playing G.I. Joe?"

And Tiger Woods looked at him and said, "My dad."

Without his father,

Tiger was left with an Earl-Woods-sized hole in his life,

and would spend the next few years searching for something.

I don't think Tiger Woods even knows what he wanted to find.

TIGER

Tiger! Tiger!

2007 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

SOUTHERN HILLS COUNTRY CLUB, OK

And from Windermere, Florida,

the 1999, 2000, and 2006 PGA Champion, Tiger Woods.

Get in the hole!

He hammered it down the middle with a cut.

What a tee shot.

Just belt the living daylights out of it.

A number of months after Earl's passing,

Tiger appeared to be in a very, very good frame of mind.

He was at the pinnacle of his sport,

and he had this aura of invincibility.

Tiger is just a shot away...

- On his way to his own... - ...his own universe.

Exactly.

His 13th major.

It's like sometimes these golfing gods are just...

They seem to be on his shoulders.

But in reality, at that point in time,

being Tiger Woods had taken its toll on Tiger Woods.

Tiger Woods, ladies and gentlemen.

He said to me one time,

"Stevie, you know, you become this global sporting icon,

and you're representing all these different brands.

Sometimes you feel you just can't be yourself

'cause you've got so many people depending on you,

so many people watching you, so many people are invested in you."

This is weird.

- You're used to this, aren't you? - You never get used to this.

He is widely considered to be the greatest golfer to ever play the game.

Please welcome Tiger Woods.

Do you ever get sick of it? You don't get sick of it.

It's nice, wherever you go, people go crazy.

It's nice they're all like that

because I'm certainly one who's not really comfortable with it.

Very rarely is there a photograph of you in your private life.

I thought, this guy must have a bat cave, you have an alter ego.

You can play...

- That's good. - It is good.

I think he just wanted at some point in time,

break all those ties, get away from that,

go and do something completely different,

and it was like hitting a reset button.

The allure of Las Vegas is that feeling you can escape.

People leave their morals at the airport,

and pick them up when they leave.

And as soon as you hit that tarmac, everything is at your disposal.

Tiger. This way, please.

We catered to Tiger. We spoiled him.

We would say, "You're like a prince,

and basically, free to do whatever you want."

- Tiger Woods, what's up, man? - What's going on, man?

Tiger's two running buddies in Vegas, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley,

they both enjoyed the good life.

The nightclubs, the bottle service.

Women are literally throwing themselves at them.

Michael!

In that entourage, Tiger was a bit of a geek.

- Tiger, look right over here. - Tiger, this way please.

It wasn't like he was like Mack Daddy, like Casanova.

Those guys really didn't have to be. Their hosts did all the work.

We would pick out the pretty girls and say,

"Hi, would you like to go up and party with Michael Jordan?"

Tiger asked, "What do I say to these women?"

And Michael, to his ever-loving credit, goes,

"You tell 'em you're Tiger Woods."

Come on, Tiger Woods. Yeah, you're the president, ha?

I heard rumors of sexual encounters,

and I remember thinking, "Wow, he's a man full of secrets."

But we all kept our mouths shut. I know I did.

We made him feel so safe,

like nobody's going to tell.

This was Tiger Woods unchained from the history of his childhood.

Unchained from pronouncements about being The Chosen One.

It was Tiger Woods

unchained from being a hundred-million dollar-a-year brand.

And so time and time and time again, he would return to Vegas.

And even after he got married to Elin,

Tiger didn't really slow down.

His ability to live a double life,

it started in Vegas.

We caught up with Tiger outside Las Vegas

on what was the coldest day there in more than five years.

Woods was on a set of his latest commercial for Nike Golf,

and among other things,

I asked him how married life with his new bride, Elin, was going.

It's been good. It's the same as always.

- Nothing's changed? - Nothing's changed.

That's it. I mean we're still the same, same relationship.

How does she deal with all the attention?

That's the one thing she had to get used to. She didn't ask for it.

Back in 2002 when we started getting pretty serious about it,

that's one of the things we had to talk about.

I said, "I'm sorry this has to be this way,

but it kinda comes along with what I do."

Tiger would always talk about having the white picket fence,

the lovely wife, children, and some sort of normal life.

It appeared to me that he was happy being married.

Elin is very sweet, smart, nice girl,

and I was really happy he had found that in his life.

And I thought that was, hopefully for him,

gonna be where he wanted to be.

Tiger and Elin lived five doors down from my husband and I.

And we became very good friends.

I remember Tiger told me that he was gonna be a father,

and he was just elated to have children.

He really wanted to be a hands-on dad.

That was really important to him.

I think it really lit up his life.

Elin and I are very excited.

This is far more important than any game of golf.

This is an opportunity for us to raise our first child

and we're really looking forward to it.

Three years into their marriage, Elin had Sam, their little girl.

Elin always loved children and always knew she wanted to be a mom,

always felt like she was going to be a mom.

She told me that she envisioned

they would build a happy home filled with children.

They could be, as she put it, normal.

I'm happier than I've ever been in my life.

I've got a wonderful balance

between on the golf course and off the golf course.

Couldn't ask for a better year.

What's harder, sinking a ten foot par putt on 18 with a one stroke lead,

or changing a poop diaper and not getting anything on you?

Number two. Literally number two.

The professional athlete is always concerned about image,

and Tiger built himself up to be more than he was.

We all have certain demons that we have to acknowledge,

and I think for years and years and years, Tiger ignored his.

And that made him susceptible.

There were so many articles written

when you had a baby that you were gonna lose your edge.

Does it bother you when you start to see these things written?

It seems people are waiting for something to happen.

There is a fascination in America to see the top dog fall off the ladder.

Get in the hole!

No. Yes!

It's called the crab in the barrel mentality.

We are all in a barrel and we have crabs trying to get out of the barrel

and as soon as they get up to the top,

one of the other crabs grabs its leg

and pulls it back down into the barrel.

So there was a group of people, especially in the media,

pulling against him.

These detractors were plotting, hoping for his fall.

I think the Tiger Woods story is a big cautionary tale.

Be careful about the image you create of yourself.

Be careful to live lies. Be very very careful.

Because it could all come tumbling down.

The National Enquirer had a history of just smearing people.

They knew that the American public loved to see

the failings of their famous celebrities.

And so they fed that appetite with a vengeance.

NATIONAL ENQUIRER HQ BOCA RATON, FL

One evening I was at the office,

and I got a call to report to the editor-in-chief.

There he was with the biggest smile I'd ever seen on his face.

He had the biggest scoop in years. Tiger Woods.

Tiger had his trips to Vegas, he had a wild side,

and he had an insatiable appetite for women.

And he made a careless mistake.

There was a restaurant where Tiger would go with his wife,

not far from home.

And at this restaurant was a hostess. Mindy Lawton.

And Tiger just couldn't take his eyes off of her.

I was shocked. I was in awe.

I didn't think it was real, I didn't think it was happening to me,

but I played it cool.

And they had a furiously eruptive relationship.

Sometimes before they could even get to the bedroom of Tiger Woods' home,

while his wife was out of town,

they would make love in the garage, against the golf cart.

And for the squeakiest and cleanest celebrity probably on Earth,

that spelled trouble.

The National Enquirer immediately sent reporters to track Tiger Woods.

They followed him into a church parking lot

where they witnessed him having sex with Mindy Lawton.

The reporter took photographs of them together

and even picked up the tampon that Mindy had discarded

and kept it in their vault as proof that Mindy had been there.

The National Enquirer called Tiger's team and asked the question,

"What is Tiger Woods' relationship with Mindy Lawton?"

And then hung up the phone.

Everyone in the Tiger camp went into damage control mode.

It was all about, "How can we kill this story?"

The National Enquirer knew that they had Tiger Woods,

but the photographs were too blurry to run,

so they decided they would do a catch and kill and make a deal.

In exchange for silence,

Tiger would appear on the cover of Men's Fitness,

which was owned by the company that owned the National Enquirer.

The Tiger camp considered the deal, and considered it favorably.

As salacious as the Mindy Lawton story was,

nothing was ever printed.

And in the eyes of the public, Tiger Woods remained Tiger Woods.

My father's been instrumental

in getting this foundation started from the get-go.

And I feel there's no better way to honor what he's done

than to create a statue like this

because this basically is my dad and I.

Mirror mirror on the wall,

we grow up like our daddy after all.

Tiger became what he loathed most about his father,

a philanderer.

Alright!

That boy loved his father with everything in him,

and that father loved that boy with everything in him.

They were father - son, brothers, best friends,

Dr. Frankenstein and his monster.

And I've always really wondered

if some part of him feels like his own journey to self-realization

and going from being his father's son to his own man required

going fully down the rabbit hole of Earl Woods.

It's been a whirlwind tour for Tiger Woods and his father, Earl Woods,

here at Fort Bragg.

The visit was about Earl Woods sharing with his son the pride

he had serving with Special Forces.

Tiger says military training is not too different

from staying in shape to play golf.

It's actually very similar. Except for jumping out of a plane, I don't...

I don't really do that to get ready for a tournament.

But he did do that this week with the Army's Golden Knights.

Not one, but two tandem jumps from thirteen thousand feet,

and he's got pictures to prove it.

I think he just loved that weekend with his father.

Earl was a Green Beret and Tiger decided,

"I want to find out a bit more for myself what that was like."

And jumping out of airplanes was just the beginning.

I think he wanted to be able to say,

"Ay, Pops, you're tough, I'm tough too.

Maybe just one step tougher than you."

On Tiger Woods' 31st birthday, he was with the Navy SEALs.

As part of his training,

the SEALs would take him through the kill house,

which is how they practice clearing rooms.

And he would go there to do this, over and over and over.

I mean, it all might have started as chasing Earl's past,

but Tiger was finding a life that was his.

I remember after this tournament one time,

we were driving back to the house where we were staying.

He said to me, "I think I'm gonna give up golf

and I'm gonna go and get in the Navy SEALs."

That stunned me in my tracks to be honest. I actually couldn't believe it.

But he seemed incredibly serious.

And anyone that's normal wouldn't go and be a Navy SEAL,

but this man's wired differently

and he's gonna do something that's gonna test you to the absolute limit.

Tiger would go do this crazy stuff.

They put this hood over your head.

The hood goes off and you're presented with a scenario.

And it could be three guys on top of you, beating the shit out of you.

You get shot up with simunition, you get these huge bruises on you.

The SEALs loved to tell stories about just lighting him up,

and the guys in charge were like,

"You can shoot Tiger wherever you want,

just don't shoot him in his hands."

Like they were very well aware of,

"We don't wanna be the guys that broke Tiger Woods."

Tiger had all sorts of knee and back issues from playing golf,

and the Navy SEALs stuff was devastating on his body.

There was a SEAL who said, "Injuries are magnets for more injuries."

And Tiger always seemed to get kicked in his left knee.

Tiger was in immense pain with his knee,

and when they scope his knee out, they discover he's got no ACL.

The doctors say to him, "You're gonna need major reconstruction there."

But, it's Tiger. "Fuck that, I'm gonna deal with that later."

And he kept training.

And of course, he gets himself two fractures in his leg.

I remember thinking,

"You brought it all upon yourself, so self-inflicted."

The doctors say to him, "You're gonna be out of the game for a while."

But he's got the 2008 U.S. Open looming.

Can he win another major and be one step closer

to breaking Jack Nicklaus' record?

Jack's sitting on 18 majors.

Tiger needed to eclipse that mark

to prove that he is the greatest player of all time.

You can finish your career with 19 majors,

one more than Jack, or one hundred wins.

19.

You can finish your career with 17 majors,

one fewer than Jack, or a hundred wins.

19.

There wasn't anything gonna stop him.

Two fractures in his leg and no ACL.

Nothing was gonna stop him.

Welcome to the 108th U.S. Open Championship, beautiful Torrey Pines.

First competitive golf for Tiger Woods since his knee surgery.

What do you expect to see over the four days?

I think the big issue is fatigue.

In practice, he was only playing nine holes per day.

First time out to go 18, so we'll see how it holds up.

That headed left.

He grimaced on that one.

Look at his knee. You can see him favoring that knee.

I could see just the look on his face, the agony that he was going through.

And we all looked at each other and thought,

"He's got no right playing in the U.S. Open."

Now Woods, tied for 27th place.

Headed way, way right.

He's making friends with all the gallery here, isn't he?

What's the feeling like out there, Roger?

It's absolute shock, Johnny.

I don't think anybody can believe what they're watching here. I really don't.

He hits his tee shot onto the cart path.

He's got cleats on, spikes.

And as he went to hit the ball, his foot slipped out.

And I heard the crack in his knee.

I just saw the look in his eyes. It was like he'd just been shot.

I said to him, "Hey Tiger, you might be jeopardizing your career here.

Maybe this is the time to quit."

And I'll never forget, he looks at me and he goes,

"Stevie, fuck you. I'm winning this tournament."

How 'bout that birdie?

I wasn't gonna bag it. It's just not my nature. I don't know how to do that.

I think that one might have hurt.

There's never any excuses. The pain hits, the pain hits.

So be it. It's just pain.

Tiger's on this quest to be the undeniable, absolute G.O.A.T.,

Greatest of All Time.

And within the context of Tiger's astounding career,

the 2008 U.S. Open stands out among all the others.

Get in the hole.

That's gonna catch the bank.

The mental strength, the physical strength, everything that he brought.

Very awkward stance, and this can't help the left knee I wouldn't think.

There was something magical going on.

You gotta be kidding. He knows it, too.

It's the same thing that would allow Lennon and McCartney

to write "Eleanor Rigby."

Whatever it is, there's some kind of magic in the air.

What else could possibly explain a guy whose body's falling apart,

and he does contend?

Absolutely electric at Torrey Pines.

And a stunner of the day for Tiger Woods,

two better at the moment than Rocco Mediate.

Alright, Rocco, describe

what the last four and a half hours of your life have been like?

It was unbelievable, but it was so much fun.

I can't wait 'til tomorrow to see what happens.

- Can you beat him tomorrow? - Who knows what can happen?

But it's... The way I'm striking it, you never know,

I just gotta make a few more putts.

- Congratulations on a fabulous day. - Thanks, it was a blast.

That night I'm thinking, I can't beat him.

I gotta have backup. So I called the devil.

I said, "Devil, listen. I think I need some help tomorrow.

I gotta play this guy, and you know, I don't... He's just the best."

He goes, "Oh, yeah. You're playing Tiger tomorrow."

I went, "Yup." He goes, "He's already with me.

Had him since he was a kid."

I went, "Son of a bitch. Alright, thanks." Hung the phone up.

What kind of day is it gonna be for Tiger Woods?

Should be another interesting quest for a major championship.

Tiger was still hurt, obviously. But it didn't affect the way he played.

- That one bothered him, too. - Yeah, but it's in the fairway.

He still played like he plays, intense and really good.

That one was audible.

He didn't hold back at all.

I kept looking at him going, "What in the hell are you doing?"

But I think he thought he was immortal.

Another stroke of genius by Tiger.

You watch the stuff he did,

and then you go, "Well of course he's immortal."

Broken leg or not.

Let's go, Tiger!

When you stand around him,

there's something going on that you're not used to feeling.

That feeling of, "You can't hide

and you're playing with the best player in the world."

Expect anything different?

Unbelievable. I knew he'd make it.

The stuff he pulled that week, it was remarkable.

But nothing surprised me. Not one thing. At all.

And in one of the most remarkable performances,

Tiger Woods perseveres and wins a third U.S. Open Championship.

If you wish for something so so fervently, and it happens,

that sounds like a happy ending, but it's not always.

At his core, Tiger has this view of the world

that only sort of a young boy has of conquering.

He conquered the world.

The problem with conquering the world

is that the world is gonna want its revenge.

For the last ten years, I have stayed quiet about this story.

But at this point, I have nothing left to lose.

My name hasn't lost the stigma at all.

It's always been "Rachel Uchitel, comma, Tiger Woods' Mistress."

I was running one of the clubs in New York City.

I probably hosted every famous athlete or celebrity you can think of.

They come for the best night of their lives,

and I'm the person that is going to facilitate that for them.

This is how I met Tiger Woods.

One night, I was working at the club,

and I saw Tiger sipping his drink, sitting by himself, talking to nobody.

I was surprised it was him, to be honest with you.

I was just surprised that that was Tiger Woods.

I went over to him to make sure that he was okay, see if he needed anything.

He grabbed me and asked me a few more questions

and then as they went to leave, he took my phone number.

And the car probably hadn't even got to the light at the corner,

he started texting me.

He said something like, "When can I see you again?"

It was intimidating. I mean, this was Tiger Woods.

I knew he was married. I knew that he had responsibilities.

But he said, "I want you to fly to Orlando

and then I will come see you there."

That was the first night I had sex with him.

And I remember thinking with him,

"How am I ever gonna be with a mere mortal ever again?"

Because so many people put him on such a pedestal.

And here he was, in my bed,

and he was my Tiger.

We really enjoyed being with each other.

He would refer to it as "plugging in."

He would tell me that when he saw me,

he felt like he could plug in and get recharged.

Tiger had issues sleeping and he would have to take Ambien.

I would sometimes just sit next to him for hours

while he would fall asleep next to me.

And when he got up, I think that he allowed himself to be a little kid.

I mean, it sounds kind of odd.

He would eat cereal

and he would watch his cartoons.

And he was like a fountain. He just wanted to talk and talk and talk.

He told me a lot about his childhood, his dad,

and that he was sick of trying to hide who he was.

But he was so scared of the real Tiger

not living up to the Tiger that everybody else thinks he is.

One day I did ask him why he didn't check in at home with Elin.

He said, "She doesn't ask questions like you, she's not like you."

And it occurred to me that he wanted to have someone to check in with.

I asked him a million questions and he wanted to give every single detail

that he hadn't been able to say in years or ever.

One day when he was dropping me off at the airport,

I said, "I'm gonna miss you. It's really hard for me

to just get back on a plane and go home."

And he told me,

"You need to learn how to compartmentalize your feelings,

push them off to the side,

and think about something else."

2009 ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL

You know, I mean, any time you're off that long,

there's always some wonder if you can continue this incredible magic,

the incredible pace, when he won that U.S. Open last year.

This would be another great example of why Tiger is Tiger.

When he comes back in 2009, after his knee surgery,

he was a winning machine.

Again! At Bay Hill!

It feels good to be back in contention again, to feel the rush,

and it's been a while, but God, it felt good.

If you made a map of the world, and especially the United States,

and just put pins for where Tiger was winning,

this guy's everywhere.

Tiger on his way to winning for the fourth time this year.

Looks to be a good positive stroke. Get in there. Yes!

Pretty close to paranormal, isn't it? Is that a good word for him?

That is in the ionosphere and just left of the hole.

Oh! Look at this shot!

That's certainly a strong way to finish.

Seventy wins and he's 33? That's frightening.

It's an unbelievable year, not only 'cause he wins so much,

but because he's doing it

in the middle of this extreme balancing act in his private life.

Congratulations going out this morning to Tiger Woods

and his wife, Elin.

Woods' website confirming the birth of their son, Charlie Axel Woods.

Can you see yourself giving the kind of time to your kids

that your parents gave to you?

As best I can. I want my kids to know their father.

How do you think that would affect your day job?

Family always comes first. Always has been in my life and always will.

Elin and I, we have to work on that as a team.

If you talk about Tiger Woods' greatest gifts,

certainly one of them is the ability to compartmentalize.

2099 AT&T NATIONAL

Oh, look out. What a putt!

Well that's why he's world's number one.

I mean, to move from dominating a golf tournament

to being married and having children

and then moving from woman to woman to woman to woman.

In many ways, Tiger was living four, five, six,

seven different lives at a time.

It becomes like a drug. And you're looking for that next hit.

Tiger kept having another hit and another hit.

In the beginning, he was bright eyed and big smile.

But I saw a change in him through time.

And towards the end, there was a sadness about him.

Maybe that adrenaline rush had left him

and he needed to go to that next level.

I do know that he called a Madam.

Every couple of months, he requested to have multiple girls.

Could be up to ten girls at a time.

He had a particular type that he liked.

Young, college cutie, girl next door type, preferably blonde.

Vegas is providing every opportunity he wants

to sample everything and anything he wants,

including the highest of high-end escorts.

We're talking five and six-figure weekends with these girls.

He was into roleplaying.

We would go and get tons of girls,

and he would dress up into a suit.

We were like little puppets.

I think there's a real danger in trying to equate Tiger's behavior

with seeking a thrill.

This is one troubled man.

And much like alcohol, much like drugs,

much like gambling, sex is a form of pain relief.

More than he got from winning a major

or from going in a kill house with the SEALs,

sex stops the pain for a period of time.

Tiger Woods, like so many powerful, wealthy celebrities,

felt that he could get away with anything.

And unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

- Come on, Tiger Woods. - Lookin' good, brother.

The National Enquirer had been tracking Tiger Woods

ever since the Mindy Lawton story.

They knew about his trips to Vegas,

his nightclubs near his home,

and when the National Enquirer found out about Rachel Uchitel,

they were watching,

waiting for that one moment to catch them in the act.

2009 AUSTRALIAN MASTERS

- Open it up. Open it up. - Come on guys, relax.

And I welcome Tiger Woods to the Australian Masters.

We're delighted that he's such a fan of Melbourne,

and Tiger, we wish you the best for this week.

Thank you.

I got a call from Tiger in November,

saying that he could not play the Australian Masters

unless I came there.

He says, "I can't sleep, I can't win if you're not here. So will you come?"

This man, that everybody wanted a piece of, only wanted me.

That's the biggest "I love you" you could hear.

Tiger's team had booked me a separate room on a different floor,

but I wanted to go straight to Tiger's suite.

I never knew that anybody had any inkling about my comings or goings.

I never thought to look over my shoulder.

We were really brazen with what we thought that we could get away with.

The National Enquirer had sent a reporter

to the Crown Casino in Melbourne.

And the reporter got into an elevator with Rachel Uchitel,

followed her to the top floor, watched as she walked to Tiger's suite,

and that's when the National Enquirer called and said,

"You're going to see Tiger Woods."

We did everything to try and stop that story.

We made every threat, we made every denial,

and at the end of the day, the story was gonna run.

When Tiger got back to Florida,

he sits down with Elin, his wife,

and he says, "Look, there's a story coming from the National Enquirer.

It's all garbage, and I can prove it."

So he gives her his phone and it's Rachel Uchitel.

We had an extensive, thirty-minute conversation, Elin and I,

convincing her that I was not having a sexual relationship with Tiger.

We talked about how I knew Tiger, how I knew his friends,

how and why I was in Australia.

Elin was already inclined to believe that the tabloid media was hurtful,

not to believe them, that they were bad.

So she sort of was inclined to go along with all of that.

The story came out and nobody looked at it.

Between this stupid story and the phone call with Elin,

I remember thinking, "Oh my God, we're gonna slide right over this."

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

Two days later, it was Thanksgiving.

Tiger and I texted throughout the day,

saying that we have a lot to be grateful for.

We had gotten away unscathed in what could have been a complete nightmare.

And then, I get this text message from Tiger saying,

"You were the only one I ever loved."

I remember just feeling that things had never been better between us.

And then he told me he was taking an Ambien and going to sleep.

When I got another text from him, I was kind of surprised.

What came through was something like, "When am I gonna see you again?"

And then the phone rang.

I answered saying something like,

"Hey babe, I thought you went to sleep."

And instead of Tiger's voice, it was Elin.

And she said, "I knew it was you."

911, what's your emergency?

I need an ambulance immediately. I have someone down.

In front of my house. They hit a pole.

- I came out to see... - Is it a car accident, sir?

It's a car accident, yes.

Okay. Are they trapped inside of the vehicle?

No. They're laying on the ground now.

- Is he unconscious? - Yes.

Okay. Are you able to tell if he's breathing?

No, I can't tell right now.

Tiger's Mother: What happened?

NOVEMBER 29, 2009

We interrupt regular programming right now

for breaking news that will rock the world of sports.

Tiger Woods, the world's greatest golfer, has been injured in a crash.

His SUV ran afoul of a fire hydrant and a tree

in the wee small hours of the morning, right outside his house.

A local police chief now says Woods' wife had to smash a window of the car

to get him out, and that Woods was in and out of consciousness,

lying in the street when police arrived.

I just remember I was sitting at work, and this big story breaks.

Tiger Woods was in a car accident.

This is basically how it all went down here.

This is Tiger's house right here.

I was very confused.

Why would he have a car crash in Isleworth, a neighborhood

where I think the speed limit doesn't go past 25 miles an hour?

And then that sort of set in as panic

because I called his cell phone and it did not have a voicemail.

It had been shut off.

And that's when I realized something was really wrong.

Tiger Woods was hospitalized after smashing his SUV into a tree,

declined to meet with investigators for a second time today.

Woods admitted to taking Vicodin and Ambien for injuries and to sleep,

but refused to say whether they were involved in his crash.

Further silence from Tiger Woods.

People are asking, is he hiding something?

In the days before the car accident,

these two tabloids came out with cover page stories

alleging Tiger Woods has been having an extramarital affair

with a New York party hostess named Rachel Uchitel.

I didn't want to believe that Tiger had done that.

I didn't want to believe that he had succumbed to his primal nature.

So we just had to wait for all the details to come out.

Websites are quoting friends as saying that,

"What really happened is they got into a little duh-duh-duh-duh-duh

in the house over this report that he was having an affair.

And then all of a sudden, out comes the wife with a golf club."

Even though the reporting was sketchy,

you had a lot of people who just couldn't get enough.

One of the things spoken in black households often

was when something would happen,

somebody older than you would say,

"Hope he's not black. Hope he's not black."

Because you knew it would give fuel and fodder to those people

who wanted to see you as something much less than them.

It was gonna be used against you.

All those people who really didn't like him

and were trying to find reasons to bring him down

and reasons to say he wasn't this and wasn't that,

now they're gonna have their moment.

Is there another woman in the Tiger Den?

A new day brings a new name and a whole new slew of problems for Tiger.

Once one woman was discovered, many more followed.

MISTRESS: TIGER PAID ME

TIGER'S BACK

NY CLUB GA, FLA. WAITRESS JOIN 'HAREM'

TIGER ADMITS: I'M A CHEETAH

There were more New York Post covers

dedicated to the Tiger scandal than 9/11.

It was a feeding frenzy.

A waitress calling him a Tiger in bed.

A Hooters girl, a porn star. Will it ever end?

It's time to find out how many women have now been linked to Tiger Woods.

Let's go to the Tiger Woods Tote Board.

The total number of women rumored to have hooked up with Tiger Woods

is up to� eleven!

My first thought was,

"Look at how the country is taking delight in his failure."

Like America couldn't have loved Tiger Woods

more than they did five years ago.

Found out the man liked pussy, everybody lost their goddamn mind.

Tiger had sex with fifteen women, they all were white,

so Tiger don't need marriage counciling, he need diversity training.

It was great American entertainment. Doesn't get any better than that.

Jamie Jungers is the first of Tiger Woods' alleged mistresses

to speak out in a live interview.

You came here today, you said,

because you wanted to clear up some of the information

that's been out there about you, like this headline,

"Tiger Paid Me." Never paid you for anything, you said.

Nothing. I didn't even get a birthday card.

I got nothing out of this relationship but a broken heart.

- You loved him. - I did.

When this hit the tabloids and everything came out,

it seemed like everybody was focused on the sex part,

but that's not what busted him.

Ultimately what took Tiger down was emotions.

These weren't girls that he was just hooking up with once

and then tossing away.

He had relationships with these girls.

We would cuddle, hug, whatever it may be.

And he always had his hand intertwined with mine,

saying, "We will always be together."

So many girls came out

because Tiger obviously hit the heart

and played with girls' emotions.

- Are you still in love with him? - Yes. I always will be.

He must have done something to make them feel very special,

and they were jealous. They were hurt.

They wanted to be "the one."

And they found out there was more than one.

Hey, Rachel.

Damn! So this is why Tiger wanted to leave the wife?

Did you love Tiger?

Excuse me, guys. No, I can't make any comment, you guys.

Are you a fan of the song, "Oh Baby I Like It Raw?"

I think you should get a test. STDs are a problem out there.

This story was so huge. That was the end of my life as I knew it.

There now were probably 45 to 50 paparazzi outside of my apartment,

telling me that I was a homewrecker, that I was a whore,

saying, "I hope you get AIDS and die."

Do you feel sorry for Tiger's wife, Rachel?

Anything you want to say to her?

I regret that he was married and I regret the mistakes that I made.

Rachel, do you guys respect that Tiger was married?

Why do women cheat with married men?

But people came at me like they wanted to blame me

for the fact that a married man cheated on his wife.

It was like I was the only one

that was responsible for Tiger's actions.

- Rachel, how do you say? - Uchitel.

You could tell she's a hooker.

You could tell she's a 'puttan'?

You can tell she's a 'puttan'.

My name was getting dragged through the mud.

So Rachel, did Tiger live up to his name, Tiger?

What's the nature of your relationship with Tiger Woods?

- Smile for me, Rachel. - Guys, please let me get through here.

In the meantime,

none of the people around Tiger would answer my phone calls.

It made me really start to question every single thing

that Tiger and I had.

Finally I said, you know what, I want out of this.

I need to say what happened.

But before I could tell my story to the media, Tiger called me.

It was the first time that I spoke to him since the accident.

He told me that his lawyers were going to call

about a settlement of confidentiality.

He said to me, "Get as much as you can."

And I think to him, that was his only way to

to love me at the time. Yeah.

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Good morning. And thank you for joining me.

Many of you in this room are my friends.

Many of you have cheered for me, or you worked with me.

Now, every one of you has good reason to be critical of me.

I have let you down personally and professionally.

My behavior has caused considerable worry

to my business partners.

I hurt my wife, my kids, my mother,

and kids all around the world who admired me.

I know I have bitterly disappointed all of you.

I have made you question who I am

and how I could have done the things I did.

I am embarrassed that I have put you in this position.

For all that I have done,

I am so sorry.

When he came out and he apologized,

I think that was a bad move on his agent's part.

I think I would have had him read a statement.

"Whatever's going on between my wife and I,

that's my business, that's not yours."

And if I lost some fans or endorsements, so be it.

I felt real sadness.

I felt sadness for Tida,

as much pride as she took in her son, how she loves Tiger,

I knew it was very hard for her.

And then I felt for his children.

They were too young really to know what was going on.

But eventually, they were gonna find out some negative stuff

that no child should never have to read or hear about.

But the main person I felt sad for was Elin

because he had hurt her mightily.

Elin, how are you? Do you still love Tiger, Elin?

What do you think of his fourteen mistresses? Will you ever forgive him?

Elin felt downright hunted by the paparazzi.

Worse, she felt like her children were hunted.

How are the kids, Elin? Has Tiger seen the kids, Elin?

You know, to think of how she told me at the beginning

she felt like it was her and Tiger cocooned and joined.

Us against the world.

Elin, the whole world wants to know how you're holding up.

To then all of a sudden have it be the world all closing in on her,

for a scandal not her making.

Man, it was freezing today in New York.

It's like a phone call between Tiger Woods and his wife out there.

She was like, "Look, Tiger, it's either me or her

or her, or her, or her, or her,

Not the Perkins waitress, but the other one, or her or her."

As the scandal was still kind of unspooling,

Elin moved with the children to a rental house

not far from their home

so she could just kind of get out of Tiger's space and think.

But it all kind of just became too much.

And she just sat down amid the kinda moving boxes with their stuff.

And she's sitting there, and Sam came over

and said, you know, "What's wrong, Mommy?"

And Elin told her, you know, "Mommy's got a boo boo."

And Sam said, you know, "Well where? I'll kiss it and make it feel better."

And Elin said, "It's in mommy's heart."

What she went through and how she tried to shelter her kids from that,

it was real.

She was so blindsided by her whole life

being suddenly exposed as a lie.

And that was shattering.

Tiger Woods reportedly is working out a big money settlement

ending his five year marriage.

The details of the divorce may never be known,

though some estimate Elin may receive upwards of 100 million dollars.

Can anybody explain these divorce settlements?

Can anybody make sense of these fucking things?

Tiger Woods' wife, 250 million dollars?

Dude, there is an epidemic of gold-digging whores in this country.

Elin's story too often got warped into gold-digging, scorned woman.

Miss Nordegren, are you happy with the divorce?

But she would say something really telling that,

"Money can't put my family back together."

APRIL 3, 2010

After six weeks of rehab at Pine Grove Treatment Center in Mississippi,

known for treating sexual addiction,

Tiger is out of rehab back at home in Florida.

When Tiger returned,

I knew that he was in a poor mental frame.

And I went down to see him.

Obviously paparazzi are trying to get photos,

so he had his house all boarded up.

Just as private as he could be.

Tiger was quite aloof that day, and it didn't bother me

because I understood what he was going through.

He's been out of the game, he's been crucified in the media.

You know, what's he gonna do next?

Is he gonna walk away from the game? There's a lot of uncertainty.

So I laid it all out on the table for him.

And I asked what he wanted to do.

And he said to me, "I'm going to play in the 2010 Masters."

How will you explain this to your children

when they're old enough to understand?

I will have that sit-down talk. I take full ownership of it. I did it.

No one else did. It was just me.

And that's the responsibility that I will have.

I will talk to my kids for however long they want to talk about it.

That is a conversation that will need to be had.

Tiger, you've been a master of control your entire life.

How did things get so out of control?

Going against your core values and losing sight of them.

I felt entitled, and that is not how I was raised.

The Masters is a demanding stage on its own,

let alone for a return of this magnitude.

How do you know you're mentally prepared for this?

Well I'm excited to get back and play.

I miss the game. But still, playing is one thing.

But the public, I am a little nervous about them.

It would be nice to hear a couple claps here and there.

We are not unaware of the significance of this week

to a very special player, Tiger Woods.

It is not simply the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here.

It is the fact that he disappointed all of us,

and more importantly, our kids and our grandkids.

Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model

we sought for our children.

Is there a way forward?

We at Augusta hope and pray that our great champion

will begin his new life here tomorrow

in a positive, hopeful, and constructive manner.

But certainly, his future will never again be measured

only by his performance against par,

but measured by the sincerity of his efforts to change.

One of the things that I never got over in Augusta is the feeling

that there's this thin undercurrent of racism right below the surface.

It was not the place or the tournament

to chastise a former champion, especially a champion of color.

Do you think that they would have done that to Fred Couples?

Do you think they would have done that to Nick Faldo?

I felt like it was a public whipping.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2010 Masters has now officially begun.

Have fun.

Yeah, basically, basically, it was a public whipping.

What Billy Payne did at Augusta,

to sit there and scold Tiger, it was disgusting.

Tiger's family, his wife,

they had a right to be angry, disappointed, upset.

Not the chairman of some damn golf club.

Who the hell are you?

Now to the long anticipated return of Tiger Woods,

his first pro tournament since he left the game in scandal.

I was on the first tee when he came out that morning.

There was embarrassment and humiliation off the charts.

SEX ADDICT? YEAH, RIGHT. ME TOO!

I cannot imagine all of that emotion being bottled up inside you.

Players are looking at him, the fans are looking at him,

the television's looking at him,

which means the world is looking at him.

Good tee shot on the first hole.

And I don't care who you are, Tiger Woods or whoever,

this first tee shot is nerve-racking.

But so far, it looks like business as usual.

- Oh, look at that thing turn. - I sense he loves that.

- Oh, that was an incredible golf shot. - Oh, my goodness.

Tiger loves and craves and needs that competitiveness

that comes with the game,

but I'm not sure it was the best way for him

to cope with everything.

A lot has happened in my life over the past five months

and I'm here at the Masters to play and compete,

and nothing's changed.

I'm trying to go out there and win this thing.

It seemed like he was trying to just sort of put it behind him

and keep moving forward.

But as his friend, I could feel that something,

something was not right.

Oh. There it is.

I knew that deep down, Tiger was incredibly sad,

lost, broken up, and very vulnerable.

After the crash, I remember just thinking,

this is when he probably needs his friends the most.

I tried to reach out, but he had shut his phone off.

I thought, you know, maybe in a couple weeks,

as things died down, maybe he'd reach out.

But the longer it went on,

I realized I had been completely cut out of his life.

He grew up in an environment where feelings were not discussed

and I think he doesn't understand how to deal with complex emotions.

Instead of having to actually process something like that,

I think it was more easy to cut people out of his life.

Years of friendship, and all of a sudden,

never heard from Tiger again.

It felt like my friend had died.

Just to be sort of discarded like that,

there was a lot of hurt that went along with that.

After such a long and difficult absence from the game,

can you put this week in perspective for us? For you?

Yeah, I finished fourth. Not what I wanted.

I wanted to win this tournament

and I didn't get it done.

I didn't hit the ball good enough

and I made too many mistakes around the greens.

Consequently, I'm not there.

Any idea after this performance this week

when we might see you again?

No. I wanna take a little time off and kinda reevaluate things.

Thank you for your time and thank you for being here.

After the Masters, Tiger took a little bit of a break away from the game,

just to get his mind free, as well as deal with some niggling injuries.

As a caddy for Tiger Woods, and a great friend of his,

I wanted to deeply respect what he was going through.

But I still didn't know when he was gonna be playing again.

I was just expecting a phone call at any moment to say,

"Oh, I'm playing next week, get your shit together and get over here."

There was a lot of uncertainty.

So when a friend that I'd caddied for before called me

and asked me could I caddy for him,

I ran that by Tiger and he said, "Absolutely, no problem."

But then, couple days before the tournament,

Tiger changed his mind.

He had his agent call, and he said,

"If you go and caddy for your friend,

that'll be the end of your time caddying for Tiger."

And I thought, "There's just no way the guy's gonna fire me."

But a couple days after the tournament,

I got the phone call to say that that was, our time was ended.

I believed in my own heart,

I gave it a hundred percent when I caddied for Tiger,

for the entire time that I was with him.

And then, for him to fire me over that kind of thing,

I found that pretty unusual.

Sometimes we all need changes.

And this was a change and, as I told you guys earlier,

I was at peace with it.

And it was the decision and direction I wanted to go.

And that's it.

When he fired me, I thought he was firing me as a golf caddy,

not firing me as a friend.

He adds another major to the tally.

And a thanks to Steve Williams.

They have been a tremendous partnership.

Tiger was the best man at my wedding.

I didn't think we'd have no communication for the rest of our life.

That just didn't even enter my mind.

To this day, I find that a hard pill to swallow.

Someone that you spend thirteen years with,

you give all your time and all your effort,

the guy can't even speak to you.

I felt that it was time for me to go

in a different direction in my professional life.

So far as personally,

life goes forward and just keep moving forward.

Tiger sacrificed so much in order to become the greatest player.

He certainly had the mental strength

to block out whatever he needed to block out.

But that ability made it possible to shut off his friends and family.

And at the end of the day, his only focus was to win.

It was quite sad, but that was just the reality of it.

It's a pleasure to watch greatness in action, isn't it?

When we look at Tiger, we often wonder what's going through his mind.

What we wouldn't give to know his thoughts.

That's pretty good. That's quality control, ladies and gentlemen.

In 2013, Tiger was winning at a clip that called to mind his prime years.

Tiger Woods sends a message

with a win in his first tournament of the season.

And all of a sudden, everybody breathed a sigh of relief.

Fans seemed to have forgotten they had humiliated him.

Because now, he was back to being the machine.

On a really elemental level,

people weren't even looking at Tiger as a person.

They were looking at him as a performer.

- How 'bout this one? - How 'bout that one?

That would have been the best four of all time.

Tiger Woods, number one in the world again.

2013 became this dominant period.

And Nike came out with this ad,

"Winning Takes Care of Everything."

In your career,

this is the quickest you've gotten in one season to four victories.

How would you describe the way you're playing golf right now?

I'm getting better.

- That's it? - That's it.

He's asked so often about whether or not he's back to the form of 2000,

those historic, epic years.

His game looks good, and his putting is fantastic,

and his irons are really good. Looks pretty much a done deal.

Is it going to cut?

- He went down in pain. - He is down.

It was an extraordinary sight.

We know that he has a high high tolerance for pain.

I mean the guy won the U.S. Open on a broken leg.

So you can only imagine how excruciating the pain must have been

for him to fall to his knees in the way that he did at that tournament.

- Oh, he's hurting. - Yep. There is something wrong.

His swing was violent. Like frighteningly violent.

Think of the number of repetitions that it took to perfect that swing.

He started doing it when he was just a baby,

and the body can only stand so much.

Since you've won your last major, you've gotten a little older,

you've had the injury, you've had the divorce.

What's been the most significant?

Probably your first point. I'm older.

Father time's undefeated.

We all eventually start losing some of the things

we were able to do when we were younger.

He told us that during this time, his back would spasm.

One time, he fell to his knees and he was like a pillbug.

He couldn't get up.

He had to have his daughter, Sam, call for help.

That's when he realized, I can only control so much of this for so long,

but everybody else still wants to see golf's god.

And I can't give them that because I'm just a man.

And I think that recognition broke him mentally.

Uh-oh. Wow.

That was unbelievable.

For me, I remember thinking,

"What has Tiger done to Tiger Woods?" I mean, he was wrecking himself.

Mental strength. That was always his greatest skill.

And then all of a sudden, he's got the chipping yips.

How did Tiger Woods shoot his worst round as a pro on the PGA Tour?

Chipping was a disaster. The scorecard was almost surreal.

Golf is all about confidence.

You've got to trust how you're gonna strike the golf ball.

Tiger chipping again. We're all going to pay attention.

You sort of have this feeling he could chip it closer with his eyes closed.

If you lose that confidence, your career is on a slippery slope downhill.

He doesn't know what the problem is.

I feel he is as confused as he's ever been.

Watching Tiger struggle, it was like, wow.

This wasn't the Tiger that I knew.

When he was a kid, he could make any shot he wanted to.

Go in!

I remember one time when I was over his house,

and Earl and Tida and me and Tiger in the living room,

I'm talking with them, all of a sudden this ball comes over my shoulder.

He's hitting them over the couch, over my shoulder,

over the glass table and stopping them before the fireplace.

Okay, he did one, right, I'm thinking, "Okay, that was luck."

Does it again, does it again, does it again.

He used to be able to do all these crazy shots.

From one bunker to another.

But it was just crash and burn.

Tiger Woods has not won a major since 2009?

Eight.

- How 'bout Jack Nicklaus? - What about him?

- He has 18 and you're at 14. - I'm at 14, correct.

So I'm struggling to understand

why you're not playing like you used to play.

I've had three back operations. And that's taken its toll on me.

When you look at losing it, it must be terribly hard for you to accept this.

It's been terribly hard not to be able to do the things

that it would take for me to get to that level.

And that is simply just practicing.

Tiger Woods has pulled out of golf's first major of the year, the Masters.

He said he's just not tournament ready due to his troublesome back.

The fourteen-time major winner won his first major

at the Masters twenty years ago.

At the 2017 Masters, we knew something serious was up.

Tiger came to the Champions Dinner at Augusta,

and he was sitting there with Jack Nicklaus.

And you could visibly see he was in so much pain from his back into his legs.

He couldn't sit still, poor bugger, you know.

And he said to Jack, "I think I'm done.

My career is finished."

What are you going to do if you're Tiger Woods,

and you're in your early 40s,

and the thing that's made your whole life possible

and defined your whole life, that gets taken away from you?

The entire identity of Tiger Woods is bound in his golf.

And to that degree, there's only one path to the endline of his golf,

which is undisputedly, undeniably, the greatest of all time.

So if he's gotta leave golf,

and can't really say he's worn the mantle of the greatest of all time,

then really where is he?

Because that has been his entire identity.

And that just had to be untenable for him I would think.

MAY 29, 2017

Do you know where you're at right now?

- Ah, I do not know. - You have no idea? Okay.

- Have you been drinking tonight? - No.

No? Are you sure about that?

- Have you taken any medication? - Actually, yes.

Why don't you go and hop out for me real quick.

Mr. Woods, go ahead and stand with your feet together

and your arms down by your side.

Okay. Don't begin until I tell you to, okay,

but when I tell you to, I want you to close your eyes

and tilt your head backwards

and you're gonna recite the entire English alphabet

in a slow, non-rhythmic manner, meaning you're not gonna sing it, okay?

- Do you understand the instructions? - I do.

Okay, what were the instructions?

Not to sing the national anthem backwards.

Not to sing the national anthem backwards?

Okay, sir. What I want you to do is go ahead

and place your hands behind your back, okay?

Troubling new headline for Tiger Woods.

Legendary golfer was arrested overnight.

Five drugs in his system. Xanax, ambien, pain killers.

If you take an opioid pain reliever,

and he's had back surgeries,

too often, a patient like that ends up addicted to opioids.

Don't get behind the wheel. Don't endanger my family.

This was another bad decision by Tiger Woods.

It's painful to watch that tape.

Go ahead and stand on that yellow X and face the front of the room.

But it's also revealing.

Turn around.

Here, one of the most powerful,

one of the wealthiest athletes in the history of sports,

is in a holding cell

for having five different prescribed drugs in his system.

Okay. You may begin.

Today is May 29, 2017.

I have arrested and charged Eldrick Tiger Woods.

Tiger Woods has spent most of his life with a camera pointed at him.

The second that camera is pointed at you...

Fuck me.

...you want to try to control the image to the degree you can,

knowing that often you can't.

But on that night, Tiger is still being filmed...

Watch, look. I'm gonna need two samples of your breath.

...and even though he's deeply impaired...

Blow. Good, there you go. Keep going, keep going, keep going.

...it's some of the most truthful moments of his life

because he realizes it's all over.

And there was no way to hide from it.

Seeing his mugshot there,

it's not the Tiger Woods a lot of us are used to seeing.

That picture, he should look at it.

He's completely lost touch with his image.

His golf career, it's virtually non-existent.

He's never gonna dominate and win again.

It's at a point now where the next press release

Tiger Woods should release should be, "I'm retiring."

Tiger Woods is finished.

I remember thinking, "Wow, is this how it ends?

This is how it ends. After everything."

After all the pontifications and pronouncements

about Tiger being the Chosen One,

this once-in-a-multi generational athlete,

who had been inspiring people

in ways people have never been inspired before,

he was just a guy in need of a hell of a lot of help.

This is the tragic ending that no one wants to write.

Okay, Mr. Woods, gotta read you your rights.

You have the right to remain silent and not answer...

I had seen it on the news, but I didn't watch it.

People were telling me, "You gotta see the video.

It's horrible, it's awful, he looks so bad, and he's done, he's a mess."

And I just thought, I didn't really wanna see it.

There was just this fiercely protective nature that I had with him.

But then I watched the video just by myself.

Where are you coming from right now?

Headed back down from Orange County.

You're headed down from Orange County?

Yes.

You're in Jupiter, Florida right now.

He had referred to Orange County,

and that took my mind back home to Southern California,

to our childhood.

To think about that jovial, funny, quirky kid.

He had so much fun and sweetness in him,

but he ended up on the street, alone, and on his own.

Do you just wanna take a seat real quick to tie your shoe?

It's alright.

And I just thought, "I really hope he can reflect back

and remember the real him."

Are you looking forward to the hearing, Mr. Woods?

Will it impact your golf career?

In 17CT 96 20,

the defendant will be pleading guilty to charge of reckless driving.

Mr. Woods, are you entering this plea freely and voluntarily?

Yes.

The defendant must complete the DUI school

and any and all recommended treatment.

Everyone will face a reckoning. I don't care who you are.

And Tiger's reckoning came hard.

He was in the depths,

and I think he had to do a lot of soul searching

and it started by looking at his past.

Daddy! Daddy!

We can't dictate to him what he can be and what he cannot be.

So as a consequence, what we do is we participate with him in golf,

and if it was bowling, we would participate with him in bowling.

Each and every one of us has our own life to live,

and he has a choice to live his life the way he wants to live his life.

Tiger was constructed, there's no question about it.

And Earl drew up the specs.

A perfect golfing machine, built from the outside in.

The outside was the more important thing,

how you show your talent.

Crushing the ball, crushing opponents, success.

He would play mind games on me almost every shot I hit

until I grew up and accepted it, and then it was nothing.

In the meantime, maybe something was left out inside.

For Tiger's whole life, the development of the machine took precedence.

It wasn't until the recovery that he entered after the arrest

that Tiger really had to go through the human development,

sort of this growth period that for most of us happens pretty early on.

Here he was in his early 40s saying,

"Well the machine got me here. I have to evolve into something else."

The first step was to go into treatment.

He got clean, he got healthy,

and he crawls out of that hole.

If you look back on how deep into the throes of drug addiction he was,

just to become a functional adult is the comeback of all comebacks.

MEDALIST GOLF CLUB HOBE SOUND, FL

Tiger had had back fusion surgery

to just be able to resume an ordinary life.

And as he started to feel better physically,

he obviously started thinking about golf.

Post-back fusion surgery,

I was able to bend over and start rotating without pain.

And so I was given the okay to start chipping.

All of a sudden, the thought came back

that I might be able to do this again.

Next you know, I started to piece together a golf swing.

Woods posted this video on Monday,

dropping his biggest hint yet that he's ready to step back up to the tee.

Who would have thought ten months ago that he would even swing again?

Just seeing him at this level, man, how you not be excited?

All of a sudden, everybody was wondering, "Will he play golf again?"

I ended up writing an open letter to Tiger saying,

"I hope you can come back, but not for the reasons you might think.

I don't want you to come back so that you can pass Jack's major record.

I want you to come back so that you can find the joy

that led you to the game in the first place."

Today is perhaps the most highly anticipated round of golf.

For the first time in 301 days,

Tiger Woods is playing competitively for the world to witness.

He loves this one.

This week is a big step for me.

To come out here and to be able to do what I've been doing with the guys,

that's so exciting. You have no idea how exciting that is.

I hadn't been able to play fun golf like that in such a long time.

And honestly, I miss playing golf for fun.

Tiger Woods playing alongside Kevin Na.

And he has this little short one for birdie.

Pick it up.

You gotta let it get to the bottom of the hole first, though, Kevin.

- Tiger got a kick out of that one. - Oh, that's good.

Alright, Tiger from just over two feet.

Would you have ever seen Tiger do that a few years back?

I don't care what situation he was in.

For all these years, he had been so hyper-focused on the results,

he didn't want to fraternize with the people

that he was gonna be trying to beat.

But now when I watch him play golf,

I see him enjoying the camaraderie with his competitors.

I see him connecting with fans in a way that he never did before.

I see a real genuine sense of gratitude for the second chance.

Tiger, Tiger!

I'm very lucky.

I'm grateful to have been given the opportunity to have a life.

And then on top of that,

blessed to even have the opportunity to play golf.

Because I wasn't able to, I was just laying down.

That's all I could do, is lay down.

A lot of times, I couldn't move.

I would be helped up out off the floor, out of the bed,

and had to be carried around the house.

These are tough times.

And to live months upon months like that, it was not fun.

But now to be on the good side of it,

the neat thing for me is to be able to share it with my kids.

For so long, all my kids knew was my soreness and pain.

They've never seen me win golf tournaments.

They don't know what it's like.

I said, "Hey, I'm just getting started here. Okay, guys? Dad's not done yet."

Round One of the Masters today at Augusta National.

So many storylines to track, including Tiger Woods.

He almost lost the ability to play the game.

Wasn't sure two years ago if he was going to play tournament golf again.

Now that he's back, he understands his place in the game.

Tiger now is the voice of history

amongst the players here at Augusta National

because it's 22 years removed now from the '97.

It's exciting for me to be a part of,

and hopefully I can be part of it come Sunday afternoon.

Tiger, do you feel like you need to win here again?

Well, I don't really need to win again,

but I really want to.

When he walked out to the first tee,

I think we all thought there's no way.

There's no way he can win another major,

because what we saw five years ago,

there was no way physically, technically,

there was no way he could win another major.

No, no, no.

And that one is leaking left. He knows it, too.

Oh, my God.

He will be hard pressed to make his par from where he is.

See if he can manufacture a shot.

Downball.

He can.

There are signs, subtle signs of the way Tiger used to play golf.

One thing I've learned from twenty years of Tiger Woods

is do not underestimate Tiger Woods. That is not the way to bet.

After playing Augusta for so many years,

he figured out how to play the golf course.

Trying to land it in the middle of the green.

That's Masters experience right there.

On every hole, he figured out, this is the safest place to hit it.

It's a little bit conservative for him,

he wasn't going out there and stepping on people's necks,

but this was a different Tiger. He's older Tiger.

- Anybody enjoying this? - Yessir!

I kept telling myself, "I've been in this position before.

You have a lot of holes to play.

Hang in there until the last couple holes and we'll see where we are.

Just keep hanging in there."

Right now, everybody's talking about that leaderboard.

There are some huge names. And right behind sits Tiger Woods.

There's a whole generation of Tour pros

that grew up idolizing Tiger,

but they never played him at his peak,

never saw the shots that they only can see on YouTube now.

And there were some pros who said,

"I can't wait to get into the hunt with Tiger on a Sunday in a major."

The fuck you do. You have no idea what you're getting into.

Our leader, Francesco Molinari.

That was just so weak.

Tiger Woods on the prowl. The guys just crumbled.

Now Koepka can make this thing interesting.

Now Finau. He really has an opportunity.

Can Woods take advantage?

Tiger Woods has the lead. The impossible has become possible.

Suddenly, we were back to watching Tiger.

Everybody's emotion went to the roof.

Down towards the cut for Tiger.

This might be the shot that seals it all.

Incredible play at exactly the right time.

For Tiger Woods to come back after an eleven-year drought

is just a Cinderella story.

I don't know if it means anything,

but the solar cycles of the sun are every eleven years.

So maybe the sun of golf has returned.

The patrons are twenty deep

and many thousands more walking up 18 in readiness.

On the nose.

When he was coming up the fairway,

hoping to win his fifteenth major championship,

I knew what to expect.

A lot of people would spin it like he was a different man now,

he's the conquering hero.

But these are the same people

that when he was riding high, they were pulling for him to fall.

And when he fell, they jumped on him with both feet.

And when he rose again, all of a sudden,

he is a virtuous man now, which to me is bullshit.

He's a human being with frailties like everyone else.

The problem is we always try to make him out to be more than he is.

And that goes all the way back to Earl.

This is the minute that millions around the world have waited for.

Waited for years.

Many doubted we'd ever see it. But here it is.

The return to glory.

We made it!

Please forgive me,

but sometimes I get very emotional when I talk about my son.

My heart fills with so much joy

when I realize that he will transcend this game.

This is my treasure.

Please use it wisely.

This has been a presentation of HBO SPORTS.