Getting to know Tiger
Film pulls back curtain on golfer’s life
NEW YORK — For a man who first appeared on television when he was 2, showing Bob Hope how he could already swat golf balls, the public actually knows little about Tiger Woods.
Getting behind carefully-constructed walls was the challenge faced by filmmakers Matthew Hamachek and Matthew Heineman, whose two-part HBO documentary “Tiger” starts Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern. Even without their subject’s cooperation, the men created a fascinating portrait of a champion driven relentlessly to success.
Neither filmmaker is a big golf fan. Hamachek traces his interest in Woods to the disastrous Thanksgiving night in 2009 when a car accident led to the unraveling of the golfer’s marriage and discovery of his secret life with other women.
He recalled thinking about how he knew nothing about a man who was instantly recognizable.
It’s hard not to cringe watching a clip included in the documentary of Woods as a toddler on a television stage, saying when a microphone is held to his face that “I want to go poo-poo.”
He was pushed there by his late father, Earl, who emerges on the film as the same sort of intense stage dad that damaged musi
cians Michael Jackson and Brian Wilson had. Woods’ kindergarten teacher tells of being rebuffed by Earl when she suggested giving Tiger time to play other sports besides golf.
Earl talks in a 1996 interview about the great things his son will accomplish as a golfer and humanitarian, and a teen-aged Tiger says he might be the “Michael Jordan of golf.”
It’s remarkable how, for a time, he succeeded. But imagine the pressure.
Woods’ high school girlfriend, Dina Parr, shows a poignant clip of a carefree Woods dancing at a party with a blissful look on his face. “I wanted to protect that sweetness of him,” she said, “because I could tell
he didn’t know what was coming.”
The men had just signed on to make the film, an adaptation of the 2018 book “Tiger Woods” by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, when Woods won the 2019 Masters in thrilling fashion. “Matt and I were texting, (saying) I think our story got a lot more interesting today,” Heineman said.
While it made a natural punctuation for the film, the directors resist the cliché of casting it as a moment of redemption.
“I don’t know why Tiger has to redeem himself in the eyes of the public, and I don’t know what winning a golf tournament has to do with redeeming himself,” Hamachek said.