Tiger Woods to write memoir telling his 'definitive story'
Fresh from a startling career comeback after years of battling injuries, sex addiction and tabloids, Tiger Woods has announced a new memoir titled Back in which he promises to tell his “definitive story”.
The book, to be published by HarperCollins but for which there is no confirmed release date, will start with Woods’ childhood as a golfing prodigy and span his 81 PGA Tour event wins the second-highest total of any player – and 15 major victories.
Back will also reportedly detail his battles with “devastating injuries and personal issues”, thought to refer to his history of infidelities and subsequent commitment to sex addiction therapy, and end with Woods’ comeback in April when, at the age of 43, he won the Masters, his first major win in more than a decade.
HarperCollins said the memoir was “the first and only account directly from Woods, with the full cooperation of his friends, family and inner circle”.
Though Woods has put his name to a memoir before, he has never written the books himself, with his 2017 book Unprecedented: The Masters and Me written with the journalist Lorne Rubenstein.
Woods said: “I’ve been in the spotlight for a long time and because of that, there have been books and articles and TV shows about me, most filled with errors, speculative and wrong.
“This book is my definitive story. It’s in my words and expresses my thoughts. It describes how I feel and what’s happened in my life. I’ve been working at it steadily, and I’m looking forward to continuing the process and creating a book that people will want to read.”
Woods’ editor at HarperCollins, Shannon Welch, said she was “delighted to discover how much he has to say, and how ready, how eager, he is to say it. He’s at a place in his career and his life where he’s thinking deeply about his story, the highs and the lows, and how it all relates and connects. I think the result will be extraordinary.”
Last year, the biography Tiger Woods was released, written by the journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. The pair conducted interviews with more than 250 people in Woods’ life, but not the man himself, after he reportedly set strict conditions on their meetings.
The New York Times called the biography “exhilarating, depressing, tawdry and moving in almost equal measure”, adding: “If you stripped most of the golf out of this book, you might sometimes think you are reading the biography of a sociopath, a non-murderous Tom Ripley or Patrick Bateman, or Svidrigailov from Crime and Punishment.”