Due in no small part to his unparalleled rise to the top of his sport, his failures and screw-ups—the evidence that he’s just a guy, not a god—registered more painfully than it did with most other sports stars, beloved but flamboyant or cocky guys who talked trash or boasted about their strengths, or who never bothered to keep their love of a good time under wraps.
Like his golf game, Tiger’s mistakes registered as epic, too, errors in judgment that resulted in a far harsher spotlight on him than on the countless other athletes who’ve had reason to apologize or try to make up a past wrongdoing.
But Tiger clawed his way back, his decade-long resurgence complete once he added the 2019 Masters title to his championship resume, a victory all the more life-affirming because his son, Charlie, now 11, and daughter, Sam, 13, were there to see it, the first time he’d won a major title since they were too little to know what was happening.
While a full-circle culmination in one sense, winning at Augusta, where Tigermania really began when he was 21, there was also the hope that it was the start of a new, hungry chapter for Tiger, one he could attack pain-free for the first time in ages.
