Tiger Woods Documentary | Chronicles of a Champion Golfer

So as a player, it's one thing to do it on the field, but can you do it when necessary? Now that everything is on the line, that's a different level. There were guys who hit the ball farther than me even though I hit it. For a long time there were guys that could work the ball better than me, there were guys that had better short games than me and there were certainly guys that threw the ball better than me, the fact that I was able to take him down head to head. At the Lynx golf course you have to have a combination of everything to be able to compete and play at the highest level.

My first memory of an open

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ship was 86. It came, you know, very early for us on the west coast and me. I live in Cali and it was just a different type of golf. I thought it was very strange to see guys bouncing balls off the greens because I had never seen that before. Yeah, there were guys who won and did very well, you know, obviously. Sevi and Nick Norman, all those guys were doing well, but I just didn't get it, so it was fascinating to watch, but it was so different that I didn't really understand Link's cough until I had a chance to go.

I went out and played it once I got the first chance to play it. I fell in love with him. I thought it was probably one of the toughest golf courses I had ever played, just because I caught the tide at the wrong time and basically played the 18 holes into the wind and couldn't believe how long this golf course plays and they say oh , you can hit this hole, you can hit that hole, you can hit nine, you can hit 10, you can hit 12. I'm hitting drivers and six irons on these holes and it just doesn't make any sense I finally got a switch and was able to play some of those holes at downwind and yes, they were manageable now that I realized you know this golf course. can present so many different ways of playing it that you have to open your mind here is the feeling of the young American amateur Tiger Wood, what a great talent this young man has and how much we are going to hear about him over the years.

I started doing that, I started opening my mind to how the balls could bounce, how the angles I could take, the holes I could cut and, in a way, cheat and get a better angle on certain sides to get into flags, other holes where he had just had. quit and be conservative and especially learn that you know how the game was so different and how they played so dramatically different than to let mother nature dictate it and you have to go out and try to figure out the

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when we talked to you before they Open, you weren't very sure about San Andreas.

Are you enjoying the challenge of Links golf? I really like it because it gives you a lot of options. You don't have to take out the 60-degree wedge as soon as you miss the green. You have so many ways to play each and every shot, which is great, that's what it should be. You play a type of golf here in the United States, where basically everything is in the air, everything is in the air, the ground is never your friend, you always try to carry bunkers. carry water, put it on top of the racks, make it stop, hit it, how high can you hit it and then once you get to the greens it says here, give me my legal budget, give me my lob wedge, give it a hard trick to get out of difficult terrain, you know? that kind of thing is always the same shots, you know, when you play lynx golf it's not about looking at the players who have done very well there, you know, watson won there five times, treviño had a great run, nicholas had a big streak, you know, jax shortcut.

He may not have been at the highest level, but the guy thought about the golf course better than anyone and that's why he was able to put up a great record there and it's just understanding how to control the ball in the air so you can control it on the ground and that's the hardest part is if I draw this ball a little bit it will obviously kick further forward if I cut it here it will kick a certain way if I hit it higher and it will do this if I hit it it will be even lower it will do that no because there is a bench there you land on top of the bench it's going to go so I can throw the ball you know all these different things you have to think about if you look at all those players I named them all I thought that way that's what made them such great players , why they massively won such a record-breaking Open Championship, the iconic thing about winning the two Opens in a row at Pebble Beach and then Saint Andrews.

I can't pick two more spectacular places between those two and I just happened to get them, but san andreas had a different level of ball striking, I hit it much better than at Pebble, that's who I'm talking about, Tiger Gorgeous almost. I threw it on the gridiron and I felt so good and I made every putt from 20 feet away, you know, 70 yards, I just feel that good that week, oh, it's wonderfully judged, yeah, there was a time when I probably I should have been in one and it was on Sunday number 10. I had to hit a drive to get to the green and I did, but I didn't turn it, I hit a desk to the right side and when I did it it bounced over one of the boats, so that ball should have been in the boat, you know, pitching to the side and trying to get to the back pin, but I was lucky enough to bounce and then I had kind of a 90,100 foot putt. to make birdie, well I just concentrated on my game, whatever the lead was, I was never going to get back to them, they had to come get me, that was always my way of thinking, but don't give them any chance to fall again in their rounds, oh yeah, there's never a doubt, make them earn it, make them come get me, if they want to tie me or pass me, they'll have to come get me, that's something that has served me well from junior golf all the way up to my ranks. pros I thought 97 in the Masters was something special, it's hard to explain, but San Andrés is so different, you just know you're looking at all of history, history is around you and you're on the street and people are behind you Trying to make your way and people jumping in and out of the burn, walking down the hole knowing I was done with the tournament, I knew I needed par on the last hole to break the all-time scoring record and, uh, I had already missed the opportunity.

I got to 20 and I didn't want to go down to 18 because that's what my dad finished and I want to eclipse him, so I said, "Okay, this is for the record you're going to win." the tournament, but let's add to it this is to make a little bonus, let's get the record and I put it there was that, not that, that was fun, Pier Dawson says you know the golf

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of the year when you hear him say that about that. green that's something I'll never forget I'm the golf champion of the year Tiger Woods my first drink was certainly um it was a libation that made me feel happy and a lot more relaxed and we had a lot What is your real and what was your number one ambition of go out and face the competition?

I love the competition and the pressure. It just encourages me and I play better. You used to see it on TV and think: Wow! I would love to be like Nicholas and Watson. I didn't really see it much. I mainly watched my father play. I guess he was the big hero. You know, people think that my father was the one who promoted discipline. family being ex special forces um just a tough guy right no, I was never afraid of dad mom I was definitely afraid of him uh she was a tough man she was tough she was very by the numbers by the books discipline of the regime you know that was everything always you know, black or white, there was nothing even remotely gray about her decision making and her approach to raising me was yes or no, but there were no babies, dad would have some wiggle room, he could negotiate a few things here and there, mom .

Once she said it, that was the law, well, she had just won the Masters at the US Open that year. I felt really good about how I was playing the first two days. I got close to the lead. I don't know if I had three. or four back, but I was there in the fight and then we were on the field warming up and this wall of darkness started coming towards us and no one had prepared for it, some guys were taking jackets off of the spectators, just paint them whatever. It is and I have your jacket and this school cane went by and it just blew and blew and fell and fell and fell, I think at one point the temperature was below zero with the wind chill that I gave, it was probably just what hit the same first hole and it was like we put the umbrella away because we just couldn't hold it uh the wind was blowing too hard it was just a nasty nasty day okay we've never seen him find so many ugly spots oh that was a horrible lie could be watching Tiger's chance to win the Grand Slam fade away.

I was more like, I don't want to say necessarily frustrated, because you know that's what can happen, that's what you have to have an open mind to play Lynx Golf. To understand that things like this can happen, you can be on the right side of the draw, the wrong side of the draw, the round of 10 over par 81 and I think that says almost everything. I played well, I played hard and it just didn't work out. It didn't work well, so let's move on to the next one. The swing is starting to improve. My swing feels a lot better.

I'm starting to play a little better. I'm just very consistent. I feel like I'm making progress. swinging a lot better actually my mechanics are starting to work now I'm very excited about the things I'm working on I feel good but I feel very good very good I'm swinging good it's starting to get better it's starting To get better, I'm starting to feel a a little stronger and starting to make some good swings again. Tiger Woods has lost that feeling of winning. One day he was running. I just think Tiger Woods is not playing well. He's not swinging the golf club right.

Bad day at the office for Tiger Woods. His chances of winning his first major in two years appear to be his choice. He has to live his life. He has to do it his way right now. The weight of it just isn't working. I felt like I wanted to get better and I always felt like if you don't get better you get worse so I wanted to try to take my game to the next level and be more consistent, that's all we are. Trying to do in golf is to be more consistent, that our bad ones are not so bad or that our bad ones are really good, because all the good ones are great and we can all make great shots, that's easy, it's one of the bad shots, how bad it is. your bad is your bad is it still pretty good or is it just out of the planet the golf course that suits me suits me I don't know if I could really play the golf course without the TV towers because in all my yardage books everything is It relies on stands and TV towers to line them up we check them as we play our practice rounds we make sure they are in exactly the same places they were if not change your lines monty was there and all of scotland wanted monty to win except That person in their group was me, that was a very good battle.

I wanted to keep him, you know, away from that jar. I thought I love him before I love him again. I really played well that week, not as well as I did. in 2000, but it was good enough, there's only one first time, you know, especially at my age, I was the youngest to do it, but the second time around means a little bit different because I know how hard it was to achieve the first time and be able to maintain that level of play and being able to beat the guys that I was able to beat and certainly to this day makes me feel very confident that I was able to do it, so let's go to the last push. hold the jack listen to the roar of it does, yes jack ends with a birdie, the perfect finish and his open career finally ends, ironically, not two people realize this, but I want jack to come back, play and retire because every time I did it, I won, he retired at Pebble Beach, I won, he retired at St Andrews for the first time in 2000, I came back, I won, he retired at the PGA in 2000, at Valhalla, I played with him, I won, he retired again at the Masters.

He ended up winning that one too and then he retires again at St Andrews in Old Five for his second retirement and I win that one so I just need to break his record. He just needs to come back, donate two days of golf competition and probably win the tournament and we can say congratulations to Jax. I told him, hey, it took him more than 20 years to get to where he got. I think he was between 62 and 86 years old. And now I'm in my 20th year here. I'm on tour so I've got 14 and I love having more so it'll probably take some time.

Okay, you'll do a part in the last part. Okay, let's do it, uh, my dad, my dad, uh, he wasn't just my father. but also one of my best friends, he was a mentor, a guide or a leader, how's that booboo

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? He stops what the TV was watching TV he turned it off and we talked and sometimes it lasted four seconds sometimes it lasted four hours it didn't matter and he always made sure we were always at eye level, he would never I'm going to talk down to his son and without that type of relationship with my father I don't think I would have achieved what I have been able to achieve in life.

I know that was my father's last tournament. He will never see me. I played and played, I played too hard and on top of that, I played for the wrong reasons, playing for him, I knew it was going to be the last time you would see me play in a golf tournament and that was hard. You know, I finished, I think I finished fourth that year and my dad and I had to talk aboutThat was before he passed away and he said never do that again and I played for someone that wasn't me, he said, "You play golf for yourself and if you want to play, play if you don't, don't." and basically he scolded me a little for not following what he had taught me it has to come from within it can't come from outside people pressure me to play or not play whatever it has to come from your center it has to come from your soul for you to produce the best golf you can ever play when i got to hoi i felt calm i felt like i had suffered enough with my father's death and i felt pretty calm i had never seen anything so much like yellowish brown balls They made puff marks when they landed on the fairways and you literally couldn't stop the ball in the fairway, it just rolled and rolled and rolled especially downwind, so I begged for a different strategy that week.

I saw that I was falling short of everyone. the bunkers seem happy with that and why not trust my iron game and more importantly really trust my lag putty. My similar putty should be on this week. I can't three putt. I can't afford to have any of those and it worked. it really worked amanda is a superstar now that Sunday's box office was a joke about how calm I felt, I felt so still and then we got to 18. Tiger, who and Stevie had told me something that you know, your dad stayed. You calm down all day and suddenly I realized that he is no longer here.

I can no longer share this jug of claret with him and I simply lost him. I'm not a crybaby. I'm far from a crybaby. I probably count on my hands how many times I've cried in my life. I couldn't believe he was actually doing that and you know, I felt so embarrassed to be doing it on a public stage in front of everyone. I just want to get it. get out of there and, you know, go to a tent somewhere and lose my mind some more, but I just couldn't, I just couldn't imagine not being able to share a moment like that, a moment that I had trained for, You know, basically my whole life. and I never got to share with the person who most helped me achieve my goals and my aspirations in the game of golf, we never got to have his favorite drink out of there again, which I ended up doing that night just to honor him and it was, it was hard, I mean, it was a really hard, hard night, you think I would have been celebrating all night, but I really miss my dad, I'm turning 20, I'm going to beat Jen and Tom Watson if I was frozen from now on and never I would win another tournament I think I've had an amazing career so I didn't expect to be on both numbers so early in my career when I barely had To start I still had to beat the baddest guys on the block I was still playing Greg was still playing I was still playing langer still playing sevy is still there ollie is still there we had so many great players there i had to fight my way through those guys and so it all ended right now and i wasn't playing golf anymore. 14 and 79 are still pretty good numbers at a very young age.

I used to get so excited about playing golf tournaments that I would sit there and move around. I couldn't sit still because I want to go, come on, let's start this fight. You know, I want to go out and fight on this golf course and fight all these guys that play, and the longer I stayed at it, the worse it got. The youngest contestant is five years old Eldridge Tiger Woods plays that way no matter what, as long as the first hole is on a Thursday or it's the 72nd hole on Sunday, whether it's the first tee shot or a putt to get to a playoff. putt to win a tournament it doesn't matter I play the same way I play everything 100 they're still trying harder because I'm in the red all the time absolutely you