When Tiger Woods drops his guard, those are moments to cherish

Michael Jackson had cameras pointed at him his entire life. JFK’s namesake son, too. Tiger Woods, the same. It’s the only life Woods has ever known, so he has nothing to compare it to. But it can’t be an easy way to live. Cameras find him.

People want to know why he’s so guarded. You could also ask, How is he not more guarded? But Woods does show himself, now and again, without even realizing it. It happened at Torrey the other day. Then it happened at the White House. Cameras caught both moments, of course.

Rory McIlroy, a half-decade ago, said that for all his admiration for Woods, he would never want his life. McIlroy was sitting alone in a locker room at Medinah when he said it. No handlers around, no security people. Just Rory, hanging on a Sunday night after a long week. I can’t remember the last time I saw Tiger alone. In the ‘90s.

The White House moment — maybe you saw the clip. Woods and Donald Trump appeared together, and dozens of cellphones went north on extended arms, like periscopes at sea. President Trump asked Woods if he’d like to come to the podium and say a few words. Woods shook his head east and west and waved his hands like windshield wipers on high — no-no-no-no-no. A glimpse, I’m guessing, into his inner Eldrick.

Millions of us have been mesmerized by Woods’ athletic greatness, and by extension Woods. He has made himself available to reporters hundreds of times and he deposits a pearl now and again but not often. So we mine the available material. Human beings are a curious species. Rory McIlroy is a curious person. (All serious readers are curious.) If you’re curious about Tiger, you can’t not enjoy these passing scenes when the unguarded Tiger suddenly makes an unannounced appearance.

This has been going on for 40 years now, these little unchoreographed moments where Woods shows his character in unexpected ways, at unexpected times. The downward tilt of Woods’ head when President Trump and scores of others started chanted Ti-ger, Ti-ger. The angle alone said it all: I don’t need or want this attention. Though he was wearing his Presidential Medal of Honor medal around his neck to the East Room, given to him after the 2019 Masters, during Trump I. The neckwear, I don’t know — that didn’t seem like it was Tiger’s choice.

Woods and President Trump were appearing at a public Black History Month reception in the East Room of the White House. But the reason Woods went to the White House at all was to meet with President Trump (and others) in the Oval Office to discuss the PGA Tour-LIV Golf impasse.

Just a quick aside on the whole LIV-Tour mess, if there is anybody left who cares: My guess is that, in the end, both sides will do what MBS wants them to do, and because MBS is playing the long game here, he’s in no rush to do anything. Time’s on his side, because he has money to outlast everybody and buy anything. If this unseemly last half-decade in professional golf has shown anything it is that money’s capacity to cause blindness has never been more powerful.

Of course, none of this is Woods’ real business. It’s more like a hobby, something to keep him busy. (It is an untrue rumor that Netflix has a mock-doc series in the works called Tsuris on the Range, featuring Jon Hamm in a Rex Tillerson-type role, an American oil-and-club man who advises an MBS-type on weird, arcane golf matters, like can you show up at Shinnecock Hills in your golf shoes and do caddies take Venmo.) You suspect Woods would trade these high-status White House and Bahamian get-togethers for four days of good walking and putting at Augusta come April. All he ever wanted to be was a good golfer.

Some of those TGL moments, they’re hard to watch. Woods making his first man-in-the-arena entrance at the SoFi Arena in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Like, when would Tiger Woods, left to his own devices, ever bump and smile his way to a meaningful tee box? Nev-ah. But there he was, a smile for the camera.

I’ve seen your picture:
Your name in lights above it.
This is your big debut—
It’s like a dream come true.

I can hear Earl roaring in his Eternal Relax BarcaLounger from here, upon learning how much Tiger stands to make, if TGL ever become even a shadow of WWE. 

But there has also been — last year, this year, every year — lovely and unexpected moments in which Tiger has shown a side of himself he never intended to show, such natural moments he maybe forgot there were cameras even there. When Bernhard Langer dropped a putt for a father-son playoff win over Tiger and Charlie at the PNC last year, that was beautiful. As best I can tell, Woods said to Langer, “Bernhard? You’re the best. You’re the best, dude. Awesome.” You’re never too old to learn grace. As a young man, even in victory Tiger was lousy at grace. But now he’s nearly 50, and second place does not actually suck.

I asked Langer (by text) if he could recall Woods’ exact words. He couldn’t. He said, “Tiger and Charlie were great to play with.” That’s probably one of the most meaningful things one pro can say about another pro, and one golfing parent can say about another parent’s golfing child. 

Three more moments that just kind of popped up, no warning. Woods at the Golf Writers Association of America dinner in suburban Augusta in 2019, casually goofing on my buddy Bob Harig. Woods at his World Golf Hall of Fame induction in 2020, addressing a million people but actually only two: his mother, in the first row, and his late father. Woods after missing the cut at the Old Course in the summer of ’22, hanging, wistful, in pain, knowing that it was unlikely he’d ever contend for an Open in the auld gray town again. 

Here’s another, observed by my colleague Sean Zak: Tiger at the first TGL event, watching Ludvig Aberg hitting balls. Just watching, and not saying a thing. Watching and admiring with his arms folded over his chest. Little moments, caught by accident. They’re nothing — or are they everything?

Let me leave you with this one. This is one of my favorites, ever. It came Sunday night at Tiger’s own tournament, held this year not at Riviera but at Torrey Pines. Woods was on hand, about two weeks after the death of his mother. As the winner, you get a trophy. You get a car. You get a pile of money. And you get to talk to Tiger Woods, the tournament host, with the cameras rolling and snapping. As it happened, Ludvig was the Genesis winner.

“Is this one of your favorite Tour stops?” Aberg asked Woods. He’s 25. It was a great question. All with cameras whirring.

“It is,” Woods said, pro to pro. “I won seven Buicks here. One U.S. Open. One Junior World, when it used to be played here.” He ticked all this off slowly, his body in character, for the photographers, but not his mind. “Long time. Right?” A big smile. “First came down here, when it was the old Andy Williams. I was six years old, watching guys play.”

Watching guys play. Watching Andy Bean hit a 1-iron. Andy Williams with his public charm, mic in hand. Andy North with that mini-golf putter.

Tiger Woods was handing down lore to Ludwig Aberg. A gift money can’t buy.

The two fellas, with 10 Torrey titles between them, were half-lost in this reverie. Woods wasn’t bragging. He was giving Aberg an honest accounting of greatness, his own and the PGA Tour’s.

You can tell Aberg got the whole thing by what he said: “That is so cool.” It really is. 

Woods is a towering figure in the game. He and Jack Nicklaus are the two living, towering figures in the men’s game. Aberg was getting a public-private tutorial from one of them. That is so cool.

The pro game has delights that extend far beyond money. LIV Golf will never get that. These private investors, thinking they’re going to make money off the PGA Tour, will never get that. The TGL backers will never get that. These stolen little moments, they have nothing to do with money. If they did, we wouldn’t be talking about them.

Tiger was looking up at Ludvig. Tiger is still tall, even after all of those surgeries, but this kid is a giant. But Woods was swelling with gratitude for the opportunity his parents had given him, and swelling with pride for what he had done with it. Fifteen majors, and 67 other Tour wins. Eighty-two big, bold moments. You could see them coming, to different degrees. That moment with Tiger and Ludvig, that private-public comment, caught everybody by surprise. A camera was there, of course, to record it for posterity.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.