By JOHN HOPKINS
ALTHOUGH only 33, Tiger Woods has gone through enough to know more than most about the Ages of Man.
At birth, his father described him as the Chosen One, a person who in time would be bigger than Buddha and have as much influence as Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela.
Then there was the Age of Success. Having had a stellar career as an amateur, Woods turned pro in August 1996. In April 1997, he won the Masters by 12 strokes, setting off in pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’ record of victories in 18 professional major championships, his avowed aim. Woods, who now has 14 such titles, won all four majors in succession starting with the US Open in June 2001 and finishing at the Masters the following April.
Yet he was already in the Age of Disillusionment with the media. In 1997 an article had appeared in GQ magazine in the course of which the writer reported that Woods told dirty and racist jokes.
This was followed by the Age of Contentment, when he met and married Elin, a Swedish model, and fathered two children. Woods has been the world’s highest-paid sportsman since 2002.
Now, though, Woods is in the Age of Mystery and Scrutiny. The mystery surrounds his marriage, which is rumored to have been in trouble for some months. There have been stories of confrontations when Elin has tackled her husband about alleged misdemeanors. One is thought to have occurred at the Open at Turnberry last July, where it is alleged that about $16,500 worth of damage was done to the house where Woods was staying.
The most recent confrontation between Woods and his wife, it is being suggested, came after Thursday’s publication in the National Enquirer of a story alleging that Woods had been seeing a New York nightclub hostess.
Woods has never appeared particularly happy in the Age of Parenthood, either. He has never been a prominent father, as was Nicklaus, who was known to fly home from a tournament to attend a baseball game in which one of his children was playing.
Assessing Woods now, you notice how much he has talked about the influences of his own parents. Woods has always shown great respect toward Kultida, his mother, wearing a red shirt on the Sunday of a tournament because she told him it was “a power color.”
He spoke often of the influence of his father, Earl, on him. “He was an amazing dad, coach, mentor, soldier, husband and friend,” Woods said after Earl died in 2006.
Perhaps it is the twin pressures of a year without winning a major championship and the difficulties in his marriage that have made Woods more sour this year than before. Times of London