Greetings!

Before we get to Tiger … a reminder that we have a lot of great stuff headed your way over the next two weeks, including $7,500 worth of giveaways from our sponsors, as the first major of the year gets underway.

Most of those giveaways will be for folks who are subscribed to the newsletter (that’s all of you), though a handful — like giveaways from Holderness and Bourne and Cobra — will be for members only.

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Name drops today: Jim Carrey, Gary Woodland, Rickie Fowler (we only name drop Cobra folks now that they are a sponsor).

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OK, now onto the news.

Four Thoughts on Tiger Woods

One thing Brendan Porath said on Saturday during an emergency SGS podcast — which was really good — resonated with me. Which is that I kind of shrugged off the news initially, thinking, Yeah, I mean this is just what he does.

And it wasn’t until late on Friday night or maybe even Saturday that I realized what a monstrous story this actually is. That I actually needed to dig into it a little bit and have an opinion. That ignoring this would have been like ignoring that Scottie won the PGA Championship or something tantamount to that.

Tiger has always been a touchstone for me within the sport and the industry but not a lot beyond that. I have never felt a disproportionate emotional connection to him or his game the way I have with others (notably Rory, Spieth and Scottie).

I thought what he accomplished was cool and amazing in the same way that general sports fans thought it was cool and amazing, but his career rarely moved me. In other words, I respect all of it, but disentangling the idolization from the remarkable nature of his resume has never been that difficult for me.

That’s probably (?) a good thing, but regardless, it’s good context for you to have as we dig into the four ways I’ve been thinking about all of this.

1. Tiger Woods clearly seems to have a problem and just as clearly needs some serious help (Joel Beall wrote wonderfully about this here).

This has been true for a long time, and most people in and around golf [raises hand!] always just (publicly) shooed away the idea that things like him badly slurring his speech on live television at the 2018 Ryder Cup or him looking like hell at Riviera in 2021 were meaningful moments. Turns out … they were!

I do not pretend to know the level of chronic pain Tiger experiences or the lengths that someone with that kind of pain must go to to manage it. But what I couldn’t stop thinking about over the weekend is that Tiger has a lot of friends — people like Rickie, JT and Rory — who have young children who live in Jupiter and play on streets similar to the one where he once again flipped his car.

I probably don’t need to paint that picture for you any more clearly (as KVV said it, “Your right to privacy ends where the public road begins”).

It would be impossible to overstate how deeply or obviously Tiger needs help. I think it would be difficult now to go too hard in the paint at him. At this point, it would be borderline enabling to not, even from a distance, at least try to bring him to account. This has likely been true for a long time. It’s almost definitely true now.

If Tiger was my friend (he’s not), I would be begging for him (screaming at him!) to hit the reset button. This is not a matter of playing golf or not playing golf. That ship sailed a long time ago. It left closer to the 2019 Masters than to right now. This is also not a matter of him driving or not driving. That is the symptom, not the root. To say, “Just hire a driver!” is almost certainly oversimplifying the entire situation.

Tiger has done foolish things for a long time because when everyone treats you like you’re a god, why wouldn’t you act as if you’re invincible? Why wouldn’t you live as if you’re above reproach? Why wouldn’t you reject any accountability? You are a god!

This particular incident, though — just like the handful before it! — is a good reminder that he’s very much not a god and that he, like millions of others in the world, is desperately in need of help for what seems to be a very serious problem that oftentimes has consequences that extend way beyond where you ever intended them to go.

2. The great Jim Carrey line.

I’ve probably quoted it a dozen times in this newsletter alone.

I thought of that when I saw the shot of Tiger, slumped in the SUV that picked him up from jail, weary of yet another cycle of sadness, exhausted by what life has delivered.

Look at his eyes. I used to have his “The Eyes Have It” poster. They still do. Just not in the way now that they did back then. His eyes have always told the story.

Receiving all of those gifts and all of that ambition must have been so outrageously fun. Learning that you are preternaturally skilled at this singular thing must feel like magic. No achievement is too outlandish. Nothing beyond your reach.

And over time, you become convinced that giving your entire self over to your gifts must be the answer. What are you supposed to do, not develop them? Not strive to be great at whatever it is you do?

This is the weight (maybe even the curse) of the gifts.

The highs are so high. The achievements so extraordinary. You are historically relevant for generations. You fulfilled the life everyone thinks they want.

What you aren't told until it's too late, though, is that the moments are more fleeting than you were promised. The happiness is less fulfilling than it should have been.

What you aren't told is that giving your entire self over to the extreme pursuit of greatness oftentimes -- not always, but oftentimes -- comes at a tremendous price. The price for him was, at the very least, his marriage and his body. Both broke down. One beyond repair, the other seemingly so.

What you are not told when you're 18 or 22 or 30 is that the true cost of all these dreams and all that glory and this entire life you were supposed to live is so much greater than you ever would have paid.

When I say privately or publicly that I would never, ever want to have Tiger’s life, I get some looks. And certainly being rich and famous is not always a precursor to struggling with life. But when our society grows up thinking it will be the answer, the result when individuals realize that it’s not can be devastating.

3. I think about this line from Morgan Housel a lot.

Tiger does things that make you ask, Why?!? 

But start peeling back the layers, and it gets easier to see.

Why would you push your body and your mind to the outer limits? Was he just trying to fill the hole in his heart with more major trophies? Why would you cheat on your wife and destroy your family? Did he feel like it was the only place he could be his true self? Why would you continually drive under the influence? I guess when you have succeeded in everything else in life, why would you not?

Why would you engage a path that your father insanely predicted would bridge the east and the west (the whole world)? Well, what if Tiger, just like the rest of us, simply wanted to make his dad proud?

The saddest thing about all of this is that in so many ways, Tiger didn’t originally have a choice. It was set up for him by those in his orbit. The sins of our fathers are so often so costly. This does not absolve Tiger in any way. But it does make it easier to understand.

Tiger is a tragic figure, which is a difficult thing for many people to wrestle with. Our western culture that is built on achievement, prestige and wealth has no category for sympathizing with someone who has oodles of all three.

We don’t quite know what to do with a person who everyone always wanted to be sometimes seeming like he — based on that image above — often doesn’t even enjoy being himself.

This is very much the human condition.

There are few gifts in life better than the enjoyment of one’s life. I find that so many tragic figures are befallen by the idea that accomplishing something great (and the spoils one receives from that accomplishment) will lead them to that enjoyment of their life. But boy do we have enough evidence — millennia of it! — to know that this is very much not the case.

That is the weight of receiving the gifts. How do you administer them responsibly but not cling to them too tightly? The very thing that Scottie seems to be grappling with in the midst of his extraordinary career.

4. The path forward for Tiger is paved with humility. If you haven’t seen Gary Woodland’s interview about PTSD before the Players, it is must watch stuff.

It takes a tremendous amount of humility to go on national television in front of your peers, your family, your friends and hundreds of thousands of people you don’t know and say, I am not strong enough to do this thing I thought that I could do.

We’re talking about world class athletes. Alphas. The most extreme, I got this people in the entire world. It would be unthinkable for so many of them to do what Woodland did, Tiger probably most of all.

But Tiger is not a god. He is a man. And men need help. All men. Not just the poor and powerless. For in many ways, we are all poor and powerless.

To be human is to admit that you are vulnerable and that you cannot do it all. That you are finite and limited and that your willpower and discipline only extend so far.

Another way to hang up your shoes.

There is such relief in admitting these things. I have felt this personally. We have all probably felt this personally. Is there anything that feels better than telling a friend or a spouse, Hey, I am struggling a lot, please help me? No! Nothing!

And yet, we rarely do it because of … pride or … fear or … any number of other things.

So the lessons here for Tiger are no different than the lessons for the rest of us. To be human is to need other humans. To ask for help is to thrive.

This is so contrary to what we’re told by our culture. So other than what we see depicted commercially. Individual ruggedness and singularly overcoming obstacles. These things are celebrated … often to the detriment of millions of people who just need another person’s hand to hold or a shoulder to catch their tears.

My encouragement to you and to myself is the same as it would be to Tiger if he was sitting next to me as I type this: You are broken. We all are. This is why we need help.

There is no shame in that.

Only an ocean full of hope.

Thank you for reading our outrageous golf newsletter that is sometimes — but often barely — about golf. Every edition is handcrafted by me (Kyle) and Jason.

We put probably a combined 20 hours into each newsletter, which is a ridiculous amount of time, but we love doing it and hope you love reading it just as much.