One didn’t have to be a golf fan to know something of Tiger Woods’s troubles when they became the subject of tabloids more than a decade ago. A man who appeared to have everything, his whole world seemed to come apart before a public ravenous for gossip and always ready to trample its heroes. His wife, Elin Nordegren, left him and the divorce was ugly. A number of his friends and key sponsors deserted him. Even a couple of his mistresses, complicit in his private sin, nonetheless capitalized on his notoriety and delivered him over to the bottom feeders at TMZ, People, and US Weekly with no thought whatsoever of him or his wife and children. And, in a cruel twist of fate, health issues started to plague his play.
Thus began Tiger Woods’s terrible and humiliating descent into an abyss. He became a late-night punchline, a has-been. Talk show hosts speculated with regularity that he would never win a major golf tournament again. His greatness was gone, the pundits declared with finality and not just a little relish….
