Tiger Woods new, and first, sports bar and restaurant opened Monday night in Jupiter, Florida. About 18 hours later, Woods was on the practice range at Whistling Straits, preparing for his 18th US PGA Championship.
Woods did not attend the opening of his restaurant, which has an illuminated quartz bar and an upscale menu. But on Tuesday, he conceded he had been personally and diligently occupied with getting the enterprise ready for the public.
“I’ve been involved in every little step; it’s been a lot of work,” Woods said at a news conference. “I’ve had a great staff, but also I have to be in all those meetings, as well. I want to be able to do something different for the Jupiter area. This is where I’m going to put my hat.”
Woods has been busy wearing many hats in recent years, not just the one that will hang in his nearly 6,000-square-foot bar and bistro. His golf course design company is developing five courses from Mexico to Dubai to Beijing. The website of the Tiger Woods Foundation lists a staff of more than 50. The foundation provides learning centers and scholarships nationwide for low-income students. Woods is one of 33 people on the foundation’s board of governors.
During his news conference, Woods was asked about a new sponsor, the motorcycle manufacturer Hero MotoCorp, an Indian company that backs his December charity tournament, renamed the Hero World Challenge.
“Is there a time when I’ll get back to India?” Woods said, repeating a question. “Absolutely. We’re looking at designing a golf course there as well. There’s a lot of different things that are going on for me positively in India.”
Somewhere in all the talk about Woods’s myriad business and philanthropic ventures — not to mention his responsibilities as a divorced father of two young children — there were questions about his dissolving golf game.
With a roomful of reporters cognizant that Woods has not won a PGA Tour event in two years and has missed the cut or withdrawn in nearly half of the tournaments he has entered this season, he was asked, “What’s the one thing you think could be holding you back right now?”
“Probably consistency,” Woods answered. “Just being consistent on a daily level.”
Abundant time dedicated to undistracted practice day after day often breeds consistency. It certainly did for the Tiger Woods who won 14 major championships from 1997 to 2008.
There may be no one who truly knows how much time for his practice regimen, or devotion to it, Woods now has. But practicing is without question the only way he will climb out of the abyss his golf game has become.
What is beyond doubt is that Woods’s world has become an increasingly complicated place as he waits to turn 40 on Dec. 30. His restaurant, the Woods Jupiter, is just the latest undertaking.
“We all go to sports bars, and kick back a few and watch the games,” Woods said. “That, to me, is fun. Hence, I wanted to create an atmosphere like that.”
It may be a normal impulse to want to have your own saloon where, as the saying goes, everyone knows your name — although in Woods’s case, that would perhaps apply to any bar in the world.
But listening to Woods, it was hard to tell whether he was creating all these interests and projects outside of competitive golf to amuse himself in the present or in the future, when he is no longer in the elite golf orbit.
And does he fear that future is approaching faster than he ever anticipated?
Woods denies that he has lost any zeal for golf, and he will insist that his passion to surpass Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors has not diminished. But Woods continues to seem oddly detached as he analyzes his own recent troubles on the golf course.
On Tuesday, he was queried about his struggles, with seven years having gone by without a major victory.
“Is it fair to say that you may have at least lost a step or possibly a half step?” he was asked.
“No, I don’t think — I can still walk the same pace on the golf course,” he said with a smile.
It was nice to see a humorous Woods, and laughter filled the room. More seriously, he added: “As compared to other players, no. I’m not.”
Woods, who has fallen to 278th in the world rankings, was asked if he paid attention to where he stood.
“I don’t know my exact ranking right now,” he replied. “I know I’m in the 200s somewhere. But as far as paying attention to it, no.”
When all the references to Woods’s restaurant, foundation or faraway sponsorship deals had subsided, two comments he made — each with a time reference — seemed revealing.
Woods was asked if the US PGA Championship was crucial to his season, since he will not qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs without a good finish. That could exile him from competitive golf for many weeks.
“I’m not looking at it like that at all,” Woods said. “I’m just trying to get my game better for years to come.”
At another juncture, Woods was reminded that his first appearance as a golf professional had taken place down the road at the Greater Milwaukee Open, 19 years ago this month. He was 20.
“Does it feel like yesterday?” he was asked.
“No, it feels like forever ago,” Woods, the winner of four US PGA Championships, answered. “It really does.”
(New York Times)
