The Secret History of Tiger Woods

The death of his father set a battle raging inside the world’s greatest golfer. How he waged that war—through an obsession with the Navy SEALs and affairs that weren’t what they seemed—is the tale of how Tiger lost his way.

- Wright Thompson

ACT I

TEN YEARS AGO, Tiger Woods sat in his boyhood home across from his father’s body, waiting on the men from the funeral home to arrive and carry Earl away. It was around 3 in the morning. Outside this bedroom in Cypress, California, the mechanism of burial and goodbye sputtered into action, while inside, Tiger and his half sister, Royce, floated in those gauzy first hours after a death, when a loved one isn’t there but doesn’t quite seem gone either. About an hour earlier, Earl had taken two or three final breaths that sounded different from the ones that came before. Tiger got the call and came straight to Cypress, passing the Navy golf course where he learned to play, turning finally onto Teakwood Street. His dad never sold the house because he liked the easily accessible nostalgia. If Earl wanted, he could go see the Obi-Wan Kenobi poster still hanging on Tiger’s closet door, or find an old Nintendo or Lego Star Destroyer. Earl died three steps from his son’s old room.

Royce says she sat with her father on the bed, rubbing his back, like she’d done the last few hours as he faded.

“You’re waiting for him to wake up?”