In the months after his father passed away in 2006, Tiger Woods became so obsessed with the elite special forces known as Navy SEALs that there were fears among his inner sanctum that he might quit golf and enlist in the military. The fear was real. Tiger was banging himself up so badly they staged an intervention.
At the age of 30 Woods had won 13 major championships. He was more famous than Madonna. He made more money than Michael Schumacher. And Michael Jordan. And Kobe Bryant. Tom Brady earned $10 million in 2006. Tiger Woods made ten times that.
Yet he’d long had a thing for the special forces because old man Earl had been a combat veteran; a Green Beret in the Vietnam War, and he’d told young Tiger that he foresaw two paths for him: world’s greatest golfer or elite special forces soldier. When Earl died, Tiger had an itch to scratch. He lifted heavy, he ran fast. He sky-dived with the SEALs, he fired their weapons, he practiced close-combat on simulated raids of ‘terrorist nests’.
He didn’t make a great impression with military types, however, according to a brilliant piece of journalism by Wright Thompson in ESPN Magazine. Thompson quotes one SEAL saying Woods “did the fun stuff” – jumped out of planes, fired weapons, played soldier. Drill instructors would roll their eyes when Tiger told recruits if he hadn’t been a golfer he’d have been a Navy SEAL. It’s the hardest military training in the world. Olympic athletes had quit SEAL training. You don’t just become a Navy SEAL because your dad said you would.
One day, after another simulated cos-play session, Tiger took a group of SEALs to lunch. Beers and burgers, Tiger and the guys, hanging out, swapping yarns. It’s since become SEAL legend that when the bill came, Tiger didn’t offer to pay. There followed an uncomfortable silence before a SEAL said to the waitress “separate cheques, please.”
“We are all baffled,” one SEAL told Thompson. “We are sitting there with Tiger f***ing Woods, who probably makes more than all of us combined in a day. He’s shooting our ammo, taking our time. He’s a weird f***ing guy. That’s weird shit. Something’s wrong with you.”
There’s nothing wrong with Tiger Woods – well, no more than is wrong than any of
