Tiger Woods entered a new realm before returning to the place where he’s most familiar. Woods, who is scheduled to return to golf at the Hero World Challenge later this month, made his podcast debut with a 77-minute interview with University of Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma. Woods sandwiched the interview between a workout – “The endorphins are up,â€� he told Auriemma – and a 40-mile bike ride. “I think I feel really good in the fact that my back’s not aching, my legs are starting to come back and my overall golf fitness is starting to come around,â€� said Woods, who had an anterior lumbar interbody fusion in April. “I’ve never had my back fused. It’s a different feeling. I’m a little bit tighter. I don’t have the pain. It’s a whole new realm for me. I don’t know if I’m going to loosen up or if this is the way I’m always going to be.â€� Later in the interview, he said that the surgery has helped his posture while addressing the golf ball. “Any time (before surgery) I tried to build a good posture over the golf ball, I would get pain down my leg and my right foot wouldn’t work,â€� he said. He’ll also be able to run soon, something he hasn’t done in five years because of his back problems. This is likely the longest recorded interview with Woods that’s ever been released. It was impossible to not learn something new from it. But in a forum that begged for him to open up in an unprecedented way, the listener was left without any significant insights or revelations that gave a deeper understanding of Woods. Some of that responsibility, of course, falls on the interviewer, and Auriemma didn’t seem interested in pushing his friend too far into unprecedented territory. Even so, it’s always enjoyable to listen to Woods talk about golf. He’s arguably the greatest golfer of all time, and an astute student of the game. The podcast was like prime-time television: entertaining, but not paradigm-shifting. Woods’ interview came in the second episode of “Holding Court with Geno Auriemmaâ€�. Basketball stars Kyrie Irving and Sue Bird headlined the show’s debut. Woods and Auriemma discussed the golf ball (Woods joined the chorus of voices calling for it to be rolled back) and influences in Woods’ life, as well as fly fishing and his vengeful 9-and-8 win over Stephen Ames in the 2006 World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. “I just think that he didn’t quite respect the way I could play the game of golf. I just had to show him that I could still play,â€� Woods said. “You have no idea how ticked I was to miss that putt on the 10th hole to beat him 10 and 8.â€� Woods and Auriemma had a chummy rapport, and most of the interview had the tone and depth you would expect from a conversation between two men whose success has come in the sporting realm. The conversation did drift occasionally into Woods’ life away from golf, though. He said his children, Charlie and Sam, play soccer and flag football and enjoy fishing. “I’m trying to get my son into fly fishing,â€� Woods said. “That’s something I thoroughly enjoy, to be able to present a fly in the perfect spot and have it drift over a fish and have him hit it.â€� Woods called a good cast “the ultimate.â€� He told the story of his children meeting Lionel Messi and Rafael Nadal, and how he impressed on them that the two men they’d just met are legends in their respective sports. “They said, ‘Yeah, but we live with one, too,’â€� Woods said. “I didn’t really think that they knew me that way. That put me backwards a little bit. I was very shocked by that.â€� Auriemma, who said he won an $800 off Woods from a wager on last year’s Hero, did try at least three times to get him to talk about his closest friendships. Woods didn’t give much, leading Auriemma to ask if he’d ever consider a career in politics because of his propensity to answer a question without revealing too much. “Everything you say is very measured, very thoughtful, very thought out,â€� Auriemma said. “I’m surprised because our friend Charles (Barkley) is like turning on the spigot.â€� Woods referred to “a couple guys in the business world, self-made billionairesâ€� when asked about his confidantes, though that question also led him to talk about getting his handprint set in cement with Nelson Mandela. Three copies of the cast were made: one for Woods, one for Mandela and one for Mandela’s museum. “I still get chills just thinking about it,â€� Woods said in probably the weightiest moment of the interview. “The middle of the palm, the blank spot, is the shape of Africa.â€� Woods said he plays golf with Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler and employees in his office but also admit that, “I have a lot of acquaintances.â€� His closest friends are the people from his childhood, but “they have their own lives. We’ve grown up together, done a lot of things together, but we all lead different lives.â€� When asked who gets to see the “realâ€� version of himself, Woods fell back on his oft-discussed enjoyment in giving his peers and fellow players “the needle.â€� “It’s usually my friends. It’s me giving them a bunch of crap about a lot of different things, more than anything when we compete,â€� Woods said. “That’s when it really gets fun.â€� Auriemma is obviously a passionate golf fan – he quickly recalled Oregon’s Pumpkin Ridge as the site of Woods’ third U.S. Amateur victory – and the highlights came when he asked Woods about his time between the ropes, where Woods said he feels “more at home there than I do most places.â€� Woods said he would like to see the golf ball fly shorter distances and called for bifurcation (different rules for professionals and amateurs) but said the difficulty lies in determining the “line of demarcationâ€� where the divide in rules should occur. “If the game keeps progressing the way it is with technology, the 8,000-yard golf course is not too far away,â€� he said. “I don’t see (bifurcation) happening in the near future, but at least there’s talk about it now.â€� Woods named Moe Norman and Lee Trevino as the greatest ball-strikers he’s ever seen, and said that Vijay Singh and David Duval were the best among his contemporaries. Among this current crop of players, he singled out Thomas, the FedExCup champion, and World No. 1 Dustin Johnson. Of Thomas, Woods said: “The way Justin Thomas hits the ball is pretty impressive. It doesn’t have a whole lot of curve to it. He hits it very, very flush.â€� And he noted Johnson’s ability to “hit the golf ball at that speed and that velocity and not hit it crooked.â€� Comparing today’s players to their predecessors, Woods said that YouTube has led to the end of unique golf swings because it gives players an endless number of technically sound swings to analyze from every angle. “You can copy a golf swing and make yourself look like that particular person,â€� he said. “These guys didn’t have video cameras. They had to go find it in the dirt and whatever worked for them, that’s what they went with.â€� Auriemma closed the interview by asking Woods for ways in which he felt he was misunderstood. He compared himself to a courtroom lawyer to dispel the theory that he didn’t enjoy the game, which he called his “bastion.â€� “If you’re a lawyer and you’re in the courtroom, are you smiling the entire time as you’re trying to win your case? No, because you have work to do,â€� Woods said. “That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to grind it out and shoot the best score possible, and it takes a certain level of focus for me to do it. Unfortunately, that’s what people have based their assumptions on. What they see.â€�
Click here to read the full article…
