Tiger had just started walking again. It had been two months since his third back surgery, and the most he could manage was about ten minutes on the beach. Then he would have to return to the house and lie down, passing the time watching television. The one thing he hated watching, however, was golf. After a lifetime as the center of attention, he didn’t have it in his DNA to be a spectator. And now that his life revolved around pain and the attempt to manage it, seeing others compete only added to the misery.
There are serious downsides to being the best in the world at something: no other life experience compares to the thrill and personal satisfaction derived from performing at the peak of greatness, but, inevitably, performance starts to slip. The fingers of a renowned concert pianist begin to move a tad slower. The voice of a world-famous opera singer develops a tremor. A gold-medal sprinter loses a step. In Tiger’s case, his body had finally succumbed, beaten down by an iron will programmed to never say enough. Even after being sidelined by a dozen serious injuries and seven surgeries, he had repeatedly come back too soon, playing through pain with a single goal in mind. “There’s no sense in going to a tournament if you don’t believe that you can win it,” he said during one of his attempted comebacks. “That is the belief I’ve always had, and that’s not going to change.”
But at the end of 2015, Woods was on the cusp of turning forty and, like so many people who reach mid-life, his beliefs were changing along with his body. He had trouble getting out of bed in the morning. Walking was a chore. Bending over to tie his shoes was agonizing. I’ve had a good run, he thought. Having it all end because of injuries is not what I want to have happen, and it’s not what I’m planning on having happen. But if it does, it does.
That was Tiger’s attitude as he sat in his new restaurant, The Woods Jupiter, near his home days before his fortieth birthday. A bag of ice on his back, he met with longtime Canadian journalist Lorne Rubenstein for a rare one-on-one interview.
“Do you have any recovery goals?” Rubenstein asked.
“There’s no timetable,” Woods said. “And that’s a hard mind-set to go through, because I’ve always been a goal setter. Now I had to rethink it, and say, Okay, my goal is to do nothing today. For a guy who likes to work, that’s a hard concept for me to understand.
“I’ve learned a little bit of it,” he continued. “I know that, one, I don’t want to have another procedure. And two, even if I don’t come back and I don’t play again, I still want to have a quality of life with my kids. I started to lose that with the other surgeries.”
Rubenstein’s questions covered a wide range of subjects, but in many of Tiger’s answers, he kept referring to his children. This was a milestone of a different sort for Woods; immobility forced him to contemplate the end of golf and the start of something more lasting. He was particularly frustrated by a recurring scene that had been playing out in his home. One of his children would say, “Daddy, let’s go play,” and Tiger would say, “Daddy can’t move.”
Fatherhood and the desire to grab on to the years he had left with his kids seemed to be weighing on Woods like never before. His most treasured childhood memories were the times he spent alone with his father on the golf course. Similarly, his favorite thing to do with his own children was to teach them to play sports. The fact that he couldn’t even kick a soccer ball around the backyard with his kids was depressing. “The most important thing,” Tiger told Rubenstein, “is that I get to have a life with my kids. That’s more important than golf. I’ve come to realize that now.”
Nevertheless, the transition from being one of the world’s most singularly focused athletes to spending a life doing something else—even something as noble as parenting—was fraught with restlessness and longing.
“Are you able to keep a sense of peace?” Rubenstein asked.
“I would have to say that, probably, my only peace has been in between the ropes and hitting the shots,” Woods admitted.
Woods was so uncharacteristically introspective with Rubenstein that Time magazine published a lengthy transcript of their conversation under the headline “Tiger’s Private Struggles.” Woods also chose Rubenstein to help him write a book commemorating the twentieth anniversary of his historic win at the Masters. With the publication of The 1997 Masters: My Story scheduled to coincide with the 2017 Masters, Woods spent considerable time with Rubenstein, sharing memories and telling stories. To the delight of his publisher, Woods wrote about his stuttering as a child and the fact that it took him two years of working with a speech therapist before he learned to speak comfortably, and about the pressure of being the so-called black hope of golf. He also talked candidly about his father’s deliberately using demeaning profanity to toughen him up. Reflecting back on that period of his life, Tiger defended his father’s methods, crediting Earl for teaching him how to be a champion. He decided to use his book to praise his father and to let the world know how much he loved his parents.
Although Woods talked to Rubenstein a great deal, he was off the grid for much of 2016, in too much pain to play in tournaments or make many public appearances—nor did he reach out when the people closest to him were suffering. When his longtime friend Glenn Frey, front man for the Eagles, unexpectedly passed away early in the year, Tiger didn’t contact the family or send any kind of condolences. His silence, according to a close friend of Frey’s, left the family puzzled and hurt. The Eagles, after all, had supported Tiger’s foundation from the very beginning, headlining the first Tiger Jam fund-raising event in Los Angeles in 1998. And Frey also performed at several Tiger Jams in Las Vegas, helping to raise millions of dollars for Tiger’s charity over the years.
Similarly, when Lindsay Vonn suffered a gruesome injury while training in Colorado in November 2016—shattering the humerus bone in her right arm, requiring emergency surgery—Tiger didn’t reach out to her either, despite the fact that his former lover had suffered nerve damage that left her fearing she may never ski again. Although Tiger’s silence toward the Frey family and Vonn may appear callous, it’s plausible that he was simply consumed by his own personal struggles with chronic pain and insomnia, relying more and more on powerful medication for relief.
According to the Institute for Medicine, more than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, and the mental health implications can be devastating and frequently misinterpreted. “Pain sufferers often are misdiagnosed, misunderstood, and miserable,” explained Rachel Noble Benner, a mental health counselor and researcher with Johns Hopkins University. “Their identities may be significantly altered because they cannot engage in activities they once enjoyed. . . . I have worked with people who had full, rich lives as corporate leaders, athletes, and professors before their chronic pain. However, by the time I saw them, they were isolated, overmedicated, and depressed, and they believed their lives were devoid of meaning.”
Tiger’s identity had always been defined by his position on a leaderboard. One of the teachings his parents had drilled into him was that winning is what matters, yet Tiger found himself in the midst of the most fallow period of his career—a four-year stretch in which he would not win a single golf tournament. Floundering, he tried to find purpose through his foundation and other business ventures, but nothing filled the void left by his inability to compete. Plus, for a man who guarded his privacy so tightly, Woods missed the camaraderie of the Tour. When he was approached to serve as a vice-captain of the US squad at the 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine, he jumped at the opportunity.
Historically, Woods had a surprisingly poor record in Ryder Cup competition. Many believed that his 13–17–3 overall record reflected his lack of enthusiasm for the team spirit of the event, and, in truth, he had always been aloof from his teammates. But as vice-captain, he spent hours talking strategy by telephone with team members like Brandt Snedeker leading up to the tournament. Guys who had never heard a word from Tiger were suddenly getting peppered with calls. It was so unusual that they were laughing about how engaged he had become. “For the first time with everybody,” one source said, “he was completely a locker-room guy.”
On picture day, five chairs were set up as two players sat on either side of Captain Tom Watson and the rest of the 12-member squad gathered around. Woods got so caught up in the moment that he was oblivious to the fact that the photographer was politely waiting for him to step out of the frame. Tiger, it seemed, believed he was part of the team, and no one on the US contingent had the heart to tell the greatest golfer of all time that he didn’t belong, leaving the photographer to deliver the news. “Ah, Tiger,” he said diplomatically, “could you just go off to the right there?” Not quite getting the message, Woods took a few steps but remained in the shot. Taking it all in, US team members whispered and elbowed each other like second graders until someone finally mustered the nerve to speak up.
“Tiger,” came the words, “you’re not on the team. Please go stand over there with the other coaches.”
Everyone cracked up as a huge grin swept across Woods’s face. All week, the game’s young guns had been in awe of him, but suddenly Tiger came across as just one of the guys. They had never seen him appear so human. “It just made you love the guy,” one said.
More than ever, Tiger missed being part of what he liked to refer to as “the fight.” He hated that his body was holding him back. Despite three back surgeries and a long layoff, he was still in an inordinate amount of pain. Some days, even lying down hurt. It was maddening. Against his better judgment, Woods decided to attempt a comeback at the Farmers Insurance Open in late January 2017—but the impact of swinging his club generated sharp nerve pain, and he shot a 76 in the opening round and failed to make the cut. After seventeen months away from the PGA Tour, it looked like his playing days were coming to an end.
Still, he soldiered on, traveling to the Middle East for the Dubai Desert Classic. This time the long flight did him in, exacerbating his back spasms and forcing him to withdraw after the first round. By the time Woods arrived in Southern California to host his tournament—the Genesis Open—in mid-February, he could barely walk. Right before the start of the tournament, Tiger attended a private luncheon at Hillcrest Country Club in Beverly Hills. His condition startled the crowd. “If you didn’t see him from the front, you would have thought he was a ninety-year-old man, the way he was shuffling,” said one Hillcrest club member who was present.
Following the luncheon, Woods cautiously made his way to an adjacent room, where some Hillcrest members were waiting for him and his golf course design team to make a final presentation. Entering the room, Tiger had trouble navigating a few small steps. He was in such bad shape that he had to walk up the steps backward. Even more troubling was the look of his eyes—glassy and bloodshot. “He was way, way, way overmedicated,” observed one eyewitness.
The next day, Woods canceled his Genesis tournament press conferenee, citing doctor’s orders that he “limit all activities.” After two tournaments in which he’d failed to get past the second round, Tiger shelved his comeback. Other than a round of media appearances in New York City to promote the release of his new book in March, he remained out of the public eye until April and the Masters. Despite resting his back for nearly two months and doing everything possible to get himself ready to play, he couldn’t tolerate the pain when he swung the club. Nevertheless, he made the trek to Augusta and attended the Champions Dinner, where he sat next to Mark O’Meara. They hadn’t spoken since Woods had failed to show up at O’Meara’s induction into golf’s Hall of Fame, nor had Tiger responded to texts from O’Meara leading up to the Masters. But being back at Augusta with his old friend gave Woods a moment of joy. He cherished the fact that after all these years, O’Meara still called him “the Kid.”
“I love you,” Woods told O’Meara.
He meant it, but O’Meara wasn’t sure what to think. He probably knew Tiger better than anyone on Tour, and yet he never felt like he really knew his friend. Like Hank Haney, O’Meara couldn’t help wondering why Tiger seldom extended the simple courtesies, such as returning a text message or being the one to call and check in. He just seemed to inexplicably go dark for long periods of time—but whenever Woods saw O’Meara at a tournament or somewhere else, he authentically reacted as if he were reuniting with a long-lost brother.
O’Meara asked how he was feeling. “Good days and bad days,” Woods said. Then he dropped his guard, telling O’Meara that his back was killing him, and adding that he believed his work with Sean Foley had aggravated the situation. The frank conversation reminded O’Meara of the way they talked during a round of golf when they were neighbors in Isleworth. It reminded O’Meara how much he, in turn, loved Woods.
A day later, O’Meara did a brief interview with Golf Channel anchor Rich Lerner following the final practice round. Asked by Lerner how Tiger was doing, O’Meara wasn’t about to reveal what Woods had told him. Instead, he kept his answer vague, mentioning that he had sat next to Tiger at the Champions Dinner and that his friend had “good days and bad days.” That night, O’Meara woke up around two a.m., needing to use the bathroom. As he got out of bed, he noticed his phone lighting up. Woods was texting to say that he loved O’Meara like a brother but would appreciate it if he did not discuss his health with the media.
Publicly acknowledging vulnerability, even when it was painfully obvious, went against everything Woods believed. Privately, however, he was at the end of his rope. He had tried every nonsurgical route to alleviate the pain in his lower back—rehabilitation, medications, injections, restricting his activities—but nothing had worked. Unable to live with the pain any longer, he consulted a specialist and weighed his options. He knew that the L5/S1 disc in his lower back had severely narrowed, resulting in sciatica and burning back and leg pain. His best hope was a minimally invasive surgery known as anterior lumbar interbody fusion, otherwise known as a spinal fusion. It entailed removing the damaged disc and re-elevating the collapsed disc space to normal levels, which might allow one vertebra to fuse to the other. The ultimate goal was to relieve pressure on the nerve, affording it the optimal opportunity to heal.
“If you’re going to have a single-level fusion, the bottom level is the best place for it to occur,” explained Dr. Richard Guyer of the Center for Disc Replacement at the Texas Back Institute.
On April 20, 2017, Woods had the surgery, which Dr. Guyer declared a success. If everything went according to plan, Tiger would gradually begin rehabbing until the area was completely healed, and then he would begin workouts geared toward helping him return to competitive golf.
One month after his fourth back surgery, Woods wrote an unusually wordy blog post expressing his regrets for missing his annual Tiger Jam at the MGM Grand and thanking the many celebrities who had shown up to make the weekend a success. “It has been just over a month since I underwent fusion surgery on my back,” he wrote, “and it is hard to express how much better I feel. It was instant nerve relief. I haven’t felt this good in years.” After elaborating on why he opted for fusion surgery, he praised his doctors and said his prognosis for returning to golf was positive. “There’s a long way to go, but as I said, words cannot convey how good it feels to be pain-free.”
He posted that statement on May 24, 2017. Five days later, Woods took a potentially lethal cocktail of drugs—Dilaudid, a controlled substance prescribed for severe pain; Vicodin, another powerful opiate used for pain relief; Xanax, an antianxiety medication also used to help treat sleep deprivation; THC, the active ingredient in marijuana; and Ambien, an anti-insomnia medication—and lost consciousness while behind the wheel of his Mercedes sports car. Shortly after two a.m., an officer from the Jupiter Police Department pulled up behind Tiger’s car, which was stopped in the right-hand lane in the 2900 block of Military Trail, just south of Indian Creek Parkway. Both tires on the driver’s side were blown out, and the rims were damaged. The right blinker was flashing, the brake lights were illuminated, and the engine was still running.
After activating his flashing red-and-blue lights and turning on his dashcam, the officer approached the passenger side and shined his flashlight through the window, observing Woods, whose eyes were closed. Tapping on the window, the officer jarred him awake and gave instructions to put the vehicle in park and turn off the engine. Dazed, Woods struggled to fully open his eyes as he fumbled for the button to lower the window while the officer repeatedly asked him to put the car in park. Finally complying, Tiger managed to find his license and hand it to the officer, who examined it. Woods was fifteen miles from home, but he was heading in the opposite direction.
“Where were you coming from?” the officer asked.
“Jupiter,” Woods said.
“Where were you going?”
“Jupiter,” he repeated, starting to nod off again.
As the officer returned to his cruiser to run Tiger’s license, Woods leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. Moments later, a second officer approached the driver’s side of the Mercedes, asking Woods where he was coming from.
“LA,” he said this time, adding that he was on his way to Orange County.
The officer informed Tiger that he was in Florida, not Southern California.
The officer asked Woods to step out of the car, and he leaned on the door to steady himself. Noting that Tiger’s shoes were untied, the officer asked if he wanted to tie them. When Woods explained that he couldn’t bend down that far, the officer observed that his speech was slurred, and his eyes were so droopy that he could scarcely keep them open. All the while, the dashcam video was running. Swaying and using his arms to balance himself, Woods failed a series of standard roadside sobriety tests. Once the greatest athlete in the world, he was now unable to walk in a straight line.
“Sir, I want you to go ahead and place your hands behind your back,” one officer said, as the other applied handcuffs.
Tiger’s arrest for driving while impaired took place the day before Memorial Day, a slow news day. By midday Memorial Day, his mug shot—droopy eyes, scruffy face, disheveled hair—had set the internet ablaze. The New York Post and the Daily News put it on their front pages with an identical bold headline: “DUI of the Tiger.” Other headlines were equally merciless: “Watch the Birdie! Bleary-Eyed Tiger Woods Doesn’t Look to Be in Championship Form in His Mug Shot”; “Master of His Own Demise”; “Catatonic.”
After spending the night in the Palm Beach County Jail, Woods was released around noon. Later that day, a spokesman issued a statement: “I understand the severity of what I did, and I take full responsibility for my actions. I want the public to know that alcohol was not involved. What happened was an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications. I didn’t realize the mix of medications had affected me so strongly.”
The fact that he had recorded 0.00 for alcohol on a breath test was beside the point. The urine sample he provided after his arrest confirmed that Woods was living in what some experts refer to as “a new kind of jail for the opiate age.” By combining the opiates Vicodin and Dilaudid with the powerful sedatives Xanax and Ambien, plus THC, Woods had put his life at risk—not to mention the lives of other motorists—when he got behind the wheel. Vicodin, for example, can cause respiratory distress and death when taken in high doses or when combined with other substances. And Xanax can impair memory, judgment, and coordination. Taken together, they can suppress breathing and lead to a high risk of addiction, overdose, and impairment.
Woods certainly wasn’t alone. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under fifty, with overdose deaths totaling 52,404 in 2016, the most in US history. But it’s safe to say that no other individual struggling with an addiction to prescription drugs did so under more scrutiny and with more public humiliation than Woods. With news agencies seeking access to details about Tiger’s arrest, authorities in Florida released extensive video of him stumbling through his roadside sobriety tests and talking incoherently while in police custody. The footage aired on CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, and CNN, and on a host of news websites. More than a million viewers watched clips on YouTube.
Tiger needed help, not ridicule and condemnation—and not long after his arrest, he received a call from Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. Along with winning twenty-eight Olympic medals, Phelps was twice arrested for DUI and spent eight weeks in a treatment facility seeking help for anxiety and depression. After his release from The Meadows in Arizona, Phelps devoted himself to helping others deal with the stigma of addiction and mental illness. “I want to be able to get out in public and talk and say, ‘Yes, I’ve done these great things in the pool, but I’m also a human,’ ” Phelps said. “I’m going through the same struggles as a lot of . . . people.” One of the people Phelps had helped was Tiger’s close friend Notah Begay III, a recovering alcoholic who reached out to the swimmer. From Begay’s perspective, Phelps was one of the few people in the world who had the credibility and experience to reach Tiger at such a critical time.
Phelps looked at Tiger’s arrest through a unique lens. “I feel like that’s a massive scream for help,” he said.
The first time Woods spoke to Phelps, the phone call lasted two hours. It was the beginning of an important new friendship, facilitated by other friends who cared deeply for Tiger. Begay and Phelps had both walked the road of treatment and recovery, and together, they joined forces to offer a lifeline to a man drowning in pain and despair. “We weren’t looking at trying to salvage a golf career,” Begay said. “We were trying to salvage someone’s life and future.”