‘Secret’ trip and sunnier outlook raise hopes of a Tiger Woods fairytale

Mickelson will not be at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma this week to defend one of the most remarkable PGA Championship triumphs of all, when he set a new record as the oldest, if not necessarily wisest, major winner as a slimmed-down 50-year-old. Instead, he will be in limbo after being exposed as a key figure in Saudi Arabia’s $2 billion (about 1.6 billion pounds) breakaway.

Effectively, the six-times major winner admitted to using Saudi interest to gain leverage and force the PGA Tour to offer better financial returns. The human rights issue was acknowledged and dismissed, money outweighing any qualms about people he called both “scary motherf---ers” and “visionaries”, but the ensuing furore provoked his present career break.

For all we know he is banned, but the inexplicable lack of transparency at the PGA Tour, where disciplinary measures are kept secret, means nobody is saying. Either way, he is not ready to return, but Alan Shipnuck’s new biography, Phil, is out Tuesday for those needing a fix.

Many will think that Mickelson and the Saudis deserve each other but in his absence Tiger Woods, only 46, will line up for the first time since he made the cut at the Masters last month. After finishing 47th at the Augusta National, while the likes of Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau missed the weekend, Woods said it was his greatest non-win.

“I wake up and start the fight all over again,” he said of his plans. America swooned.

He also repeated his timeworn mantra: the one that sounded like pure denial during five years without a win and 11 without a major. “If I feel like I can win, I’m going to play,” he said last month. “If I feel like I can’t then you won’t see me out here.”

When he won previously to end those droughts, at the Tour Championship in 2018 and then the Masters in 2019, Woods was back on the pedestal. To then come close to losing his leg in a car crash last year and return to make a Masters Sunday within 14 months added to the legend – and airbrushed any past misdemeanours.

In a way Woods has already won again, at least when it comes to his rivalry with Mickelson. His own reputation was also in pieces in 2010 when he came back from the detritus of scandal to face the music at the Masters. That included the famous violin solo from the Augusta National chairman Billy Payne, who reminded us that the philanderer’s “egregious” conduct had upset the grandkids.

If the “crime” was different, chasing women rather than dollars, the disappointment also stemmed from duplicitousness. Now the top brass can’t get enough of Woods, especially with Greg Norman threatening to choose this week to release the first names of those signed up to the Saudi-funded LIV Golf Invitational Series.

Woods played a practice round on Sunday and was in an upbeat mood. “I’ve gotten a lot stronger since the Masters,” he said afterwards. “We went back to work on Tuesday. Monday was awful – I did nothing – and Tuesday was leg day. We went right back after it. Everything is better.” A 358-yard drive suggested that the power levels are up.

As it happens, Southern Hills has a history of true crime and real scandal.

In 1981 a Tulsa businessman and club member named Roger Wheeler was shot dead in the car park after his Wednesday game, a victim of corrupt FBI men and the Winter Hill Gang headed by the notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, who was later portrayed by Johnny Depp in the Hollywood film Black Mass. Wheeler had found out that the gang and their connections were “skimming” money from one of his businesses. The PGA Championship was staged at Southern Hills the following year. Decades later a mob hitman, Johnny Martorano, cut a deal and confessed to 20 murders including that of Wheeler. He got out of jail in 2007 and was given dollars 20,000 of government money to start a new life. Five months later, Woods won the PGA title at Southern Hills, the 13th of his 15th majors.

His chances of winning there again are modest but surely better than at the Masters. This is the new reality for Woods as he makes slow progress. Having distanced himself from the Saudi millions – why would he need that sort of baggage or money? – he will play sparingly.

At Augusta, when he finished with a pronounced limp, he admitted that he will never get any more mobility in his damaged leg but said it would get stronger. He hasn’t finished in the top ten since January 2020 and hasn’t won a tournament since October 2019, although those displays are recent enough to suggest that his talent is not yet burnt up if he can cope with a lack of competitive warm-ups.

One man backing Woods to fare well is Cary Cozby, the Southern Hills director of golf who caddied for him during a reconnaissance trip a fortnight ago. That, too, caused a murmur of disquiet, with the wife of Patrick Reed believed to be behind a tweet that referenced a photograph of Woods and Cozby alongside the message: “I wonder what it’s like to have the director of golf at Southern Hills give you ALL the course notes for the upcoming PGA. Do all players get this treatment? For Tiger this is just embarrassing that the PGA posted this photo and very telling.”

It turned out that Reed had also been warmly welcomed at the course. Perhaps the disgruntlement arose because Cozby said Woods’s arrival had been akin to Beatlemania, whereas Reed’s mission roused as much interest as a bloke playing the spoons in the local bar and grill.

During this supposedly “secret” trip, Cozby said that there was a helicopter on the 2nd, about 70 people watching from a hill and another 40 in trees opposite the 6th. “It’s amazing what he has to deal with on a daily basis,” Cozby said of Woods, before suggesting changes made to the course since 2007 would help him. “I think he can contend. He’s like Michael Jordan late in his career, playing defence and hitting jump shots. Whoever wins here is going to have to be a great chipper and he is still that.”

Watching Woods at the Masters, and listening to him, made it easy to believe the car-crash comeback is a challenge that has given him a new incentive and appealed to his indomitable will. For Seth Waugh, the chief executive of the PGA of America, which stages the event, Woods will be the ideal boost after Mickelson’s withdrawal and all the Saudi talk.

Shipnuck’s book provides insights into the Woods psyche as well the Mickelson one.

According to Shipnuck, Mickelson is a gambler and egotist, signing autographs for effect, the man that his mocking peers dubbed “Genius” and “FIGJAM” (f*** I’m good, just ask me), but also a man capable of acts of random kindness and care. He has had to deal with intrusive rumour, even getting a private investigator to find out who was spreading unfounded rumours of a love child. The subtitle calls him golf’s most colourful player and his obvious concern about what Shipnuck was writing is an instructive subplot.

Shipnuck’s book also includes testimony from Charles Barkley, the former NBA player who has known both well. “Tiger won a bunch of tournaments but there wasn’t much joy in it,” he said. “Sure, Tiger is the better golfer. You’re just in awe of his talent. But it’s not fun to be around him. Everyone in his world is uptight [and] afraid to say or do the wrong thing. Tiger himself always acted like he’s under siege. Gimme a f---in’ break – you’re just a golfer, dude. When you’re with Phil, you’re guaranteed to have fun.” He concluded: “One of the reasons Phil has lasted so long is because he has had a joyful life.”

Woods now seems happier too, which might be the final insult. The reversal of fortunes means that, regardless of whether he plays this week, Woods will continue on what is likely to be a long and celebrated final chapter, while the PGA champion makes do with his memories and Saudi millions.

– The Times

Originally published as ‘Secret’ trip and sunnier outlook raise hopes of a Tiger Woods fairytale