The Atlantic
The Emotional Miseducation of Tiger Woods
A new HBO documentary zeroes in on the immense psychological toll it took for the legendary golfer to go from prodigy to phenom.
David Strick / Redux
“I might be sorta like a Michael Jordan in basketball,” a teenage Tiger Woods says during a 1990 interview featured in a new documentary on the legendary American golfer. Moments before, Woods suggested he could one day overshadow the veteran player Jack Nicklaus: “I might be even bigger than him to the Blacks.” Such brazen statements pepper most sports documentaries, and HBO’s
Tiger incorporates many hallmarks of the genre. We hear the young Woods predict his impending reign. In contemporary interviews, cultural commentators, journalists, and the athlete’s peers reflect on his decades of greatness. Clips of the prodigy holding a club in his unsteady hand give way to footage of him striding through and dominating verdant golf courses around the world. The ascent is