Maiorana's Memories: One-on-one with 17-year-old Tiger Woods

During his 34 years as a sports writer for the Democrat and Chronicle, Sal Maiorana has had the great fortune to have covered countless memorable games, events and athletes. In a new column titled Maiorana’s Memories, he will relive some of his favorite stories. Today, a look back to 1993 when Tiger Woods came to Rochester to play in the Monroe Invitational as a 17-year-old amateur.

In February 1992 I took a week of vacation from the Democrat and Chronicle and spent the time at fabulous Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California to work on my first book, Through the Green – The Mind and Art of a Professional Golfer.

The premise was to provide an insiders’ look at the life of a PGA Tour player, both on and off the course, and my subject was the gracious Davis Love III who, at that time, was one of the top-ranked players in the world.

Granted unprecedented access, I was attached to his hip throughout the playing of the Nissan Los Angeles Open, and as fate would have it, he and Fred Couples — who was the top player in the world — wound up in a playoff to decide the tournament, Couples ultimately winning.

Quite a week to be doing a book.

I bring this up because that same week a 140-pound 16-year-old African-American, who many thought would someday be the future face of the game, was playing in his first PGA Tour event on a sponsors’ exemption, thus becoming the second-youngest person to tee it up against the pros.

You may have heard of him. His name is Tiger Woods.

Being from Southern California, and already possessing a dynamite amateur resume, Woods was as big a story as any of the pros in the field that week and the hometown galleries that followed him around the historic course were enormous. Never mind that he shot 72-75 to miss the cut — you could just tell that Woods was going to be someone who eventually would be able to live up to all the hype.

Because I was busy with Love and the book, I didn’t get the chance to watch Tiger play the two days he was in the field at Riviera, nor did I sit in on his post-round press conferences. 
However, in June 1993, I was lucky enough to get a one-on-one sit-down with him when he played in the Monroe Invitational Championship at Monroe Golf Club in Pittsford.
His omnipresent father, Earl Woods, set the ground rules. First and foremost, Earl had to be present for the interview, and if there was a question he didn’t like, he would not allow Tiger to answer.

Once I agreed, the three of us sat down behind the 18th green at Monroe for about 30 minutes, and this is the story that came out of that conversation 27 years ago this week.
Tiger’s Tale

PITTSFORD - It shouldn’t be this way, but it is, and Eldrick “Tiger” Woods understands.
Well, he sort of understands, which in itself says a lot about this 17-year-old high school senior-to-be.

Woods is widely-regarded as the best junior golfer in the country, perhaps the world. He is the two-time defending U.S. Golf Association Junior champion, a two-time American Junior Golf Association player of the year honoree, a four-time Optimist Junior World champion, and he has already played in three PGA Tour events (one in 1992, two this year) as a sponsor-exempted amateur.

It is because of this impressive resume that crowds — be it media or fans — flock to Woods the way they do.

Sadly, his prodigious golf game is not the sole reason for all of the attention he receives.
You see, Woods is black. That’s right, a golfer who is black. And even in 1993, being black and playing golf go together as well as gasoline and matches.

“(Jack) Nicklaus or Bobby Jones or even (Phil) Mickelson didn’t get this type of media attention growing up,” Woods said Monday during a break from a practice round at Monroe Golf Club. “But being that I’m of the more darker skin variety, I seem to garner all this media attention.”

Does this bother the honor roll student from Western High School in Cypress, California?
“Yeah, a little bit,” he said.

Would he rather be recognized for his golfing wizardry rather than the color of his skin?
“I wish it could be that way, but in this sport ...”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He didn’t have to.

At the highest levels of golf which would be the PGA, Senior, LPGA and Nike tours, the sport is whiter than March was in Rochester. Only eight blacks have teed it up in tournaments this season.

Calvin Peete and Jim Thorpe have played on the PGA Tour, Jim Dent, Lee Elder, Charlie Sifford, Walter Morgan and Charles Owens are on the Senior Tour, and Ashley Chinner plays the Nike Tour. There are no black LPGA players.

On the junior circuit — which Woods has dominated since he became a teenager — he is often the only black in the field, which is the case for this week’s Monroe Invitational Championship.

“It’s sad more than anything, because I’m the only one,” Woods said. “But there are a lot of programs for minorities and they’re right behind me. The barriers are starting to come down.”

The question is, how far can these minority players that Woods refers to progress?

It is very likely that skin color is the only thing Woods has in common with them.

How many of them can say that they picked up their first golf club at the age of three months and swung it in anger at 10 months? “He took his little putter, waggled, looked at his target and hit it right into the net,” his father, Earl Woods, said.

How many can say that they appeared on the old Mike Douglas Show because at the age of three, they shot 48 for nine holes? “I teed all the balls up, but he putted everything out,” Earl Woods said.

How many can say that they shot 69 on a 6,900-yard course at the age of 12? Probably none.

And probably none could handle the stardom and the stares the way Woods does.

“He’s aware of his role and he has the ability to keep everything in perspective,” his father said. “If you had to program the perfect child, put it in the computer, Tiger would be it. He’s just perfect at everything. He’s got a perfect disposition, he’s intelligent, confident, he has integrity, a sense of humor. It’s all there. I’ve never asked him two questions in my life. I’ve never asked him. ‘Did you practice?’ And never have I asked him, ‘Did you do your homework?’ Never.”

Earl, a former green beret, took up golf just before retiring at the age of 42 in 1974. He became a 1-handicap by honing his game in the garage, hitting balls into a net.

This is where Tiger first took an interest in the game.

“When he was three months old I gave him a little putter, a cut down little thing, and he played with it,” Earl said. “That was his favorite toy. He would sit in his high chair at six months and watch me hit balls into my net. He had an attention span of about two hours which is off the wall. His mother would come to feed him and it was no, no, no. She fed him between shots.”

When he was 3 years old Tiger would ask his dad to go to the driving range and father and son would have closest-to-the-pin contests. Tiger would win about half the time.
“I just did it,” Tiger said. “I don’t know if I wanted to do it, I just did it.”

By the time he was 4, former PGA Tour player Rudy Durand began teaching him and now, he is tutored by John Anselmo. Along the way, and especially once he hit the national junior scene at 13, he has been a media phenomenon. Not surprisingly, the routine has worn thin.

“It gets to be a pain,” he said. “Every tournament I go to I have to do interviews. I’ve pretty much grown up with it so it’s not such a big deal for me. I don’t feel like I’m special at all. The only time I feel special is when I win a tournament. Other than that, the media attention is just bothersome, it’s not special.”

In February 1992, at the age of 16 years and one month, Woods became the second-youngest player to compete in a PGA Tour event when he teed it up in the Los Angeles Open at historic Riviera Country Club.

It was a special two days as his family and legions of friends followed him around the course. Woods was also being followed by a pair of body guards.

Before the first round, death threats had been phoned in to the tournament office because Woods had been allowed to play.

Still, the then high school sophomore — his nerves already frayed by the specter of Riviera, a pro tournament and a boisterous gallery estimated at more than 3,000 — ignored the threats and shot 72-75, missing the cut by only six shots.

He may not feel like he’s special, but he is.

And not because of the color of his skin.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.