The Grillroom : Tiger Woods - Brief Article - Interview

Golf Digest, Jan, 2000 by Bob Verdi

Welcome to a new century. What do you want to do with it?

I want to be what I've always wanted to be: dominant. The best ever. I'm not as far along as Jack Nicklaus was at this age, but I'm trying.

At the last Ryder Cup, Michael Jordan, John Elway and Mario Lemieux were watching you in the gallery. Could you have ever imagined?

Golf is definitely cool now. It wasn't when I was a kid, but I kept doing it, because I loved it. I played all the other sports, but didn't have the passion. If I hadn't stayed with golf: baseball. Amazing thing is, I love golf more than ever.

Are you a prisoner of fame? No. I go out to dinner or a movie, with buddies or my girlfriend, whenever I want. I'm not new anymore. I'm not 6-foot-6, either, like M.J. I don't stand out.

But you're bigger than before. You noticed. Bigger, but stronger. I'm 18 pounds heavier than when I came out of college, but more flexible. Body fat is 9 percent.

Your pal, M.J., quit sooner rather than later. Will you?

It will always be the ball and me. That's why I could see myself on the senior tour. Michael left because of the Bulls' management, not because he'd lost his love of playing the game.

Has Jordan got you into smoking cigars?

He tried to get me to smoke one while we were playing golf last summer. I've got allergies. He wanted to throw me off my game, maybe make me dizzy. No thanks.

The 1990s began with the Shoal Creek controversy and ends with you, a minority, as the No. 1 player.

Kind of ironic, isn't it? Lee Elder played his first Masters in 1975, the year I was born. I won there in '97, and he's there. I followed the Shoal Creek issue. I got kicked off courses as a kid. It still exists.

What's the best advice you ever got?

From my dad, Earl, and it wasn't about golf: Always be yourself.

Are you a clothes horse? A shoe freak? Cars? Jewelry?

No. I have a few suits, but I wear the same ones over and over. Truth is, I don't collect anything. And I don't cook, either. Not as long as they still deliver pizza.

What bothers you about being a celebrity?

How sensationalism and negativity sell in your business, journalism. An athlete can say something now, and it can be interpreted in 10 different ways. And we never get the benefit of the doubt.

But one of your own, Brad Faxon, said you wanted Ryder Cup money for yourself, not charity.

First of all, that's not true. I don't need $100,000 for myself, or for a tax writeoff. Second, I saw Brad Faxon at the Ryder Cup, working on radio and TV and going to corporate tents. Was he doing that for his country?

You've attracted more mainstream fans, like at the Ryder Cup, where galleries were feisty.

You know what I noticed there? People were fine in the morning, then they got more rowdy in the afternoon. A lot of people couldn't see, they got frustrated, they drank more beer. Figure it out.

How do we salvage golf etiquette?

Well, on Sunday of the PGA at Medinah, some fan yelled something at me and other fans got on him. That's what needs to happen. The real golf fans have to look out for golf.

To parents who want to raise the next Tiger Woods, what would you say?

Don't force your kids into sports. I never was. To this day, my dad has never asked me to go play golf. I ask him. It's the child's desire to play that matters, not the parent's desire to have the child play. Fun. Keep it fun.