Running Tiger Woods thread

There are many ways Woods could work at promoting golf besides broadcasting. He could work with kids, boost high school golf programs, etc. The PGA (not Tour) has about a zillion promotional campaigns with no face on 'em. He could be the face, and a good one.

 

He's very invested in his foundation, and I know he wants that to be a lasting legacy.

 

Just to briefly address songbird's question about why I didn't write this piece:

1. This needed someone as obsessive as WWT to chase new material. Shipnuck's piece was interesting, but I think to write about TW, now, you need someone willing to unearth every morsel that's never been written before.

2. Wright did this way, way better than I would have. I like golf, sure. But that doesn't mean much when you're talking about one of the most fascinating subjects of this generation.

3. A year ago, I wanted to write about Rory McIlroy, and how fame and expectations can crush your soul. I did that. I'm proud of that piece, which I spent a long time thinking about, even though it's not in the same league as Wright on TW.

4. I'm not teaching anymore. It was a one semester gig. I loved it. But it ended in the winter.

5. The most inspirational thing about Wright is his work ethic. I wish I had it. I work hard, but I'm still figuring out how to tackle stories like this. He's relentless. People have no idea.

 

Re: No. 5... Invariably on these threads, someone will post "I don't see what's the big deal. Anyone could write a piece like this given the time and resources that Wright was given." My younger self wanted to punch those people; now I just smile and think, You are fucking delusional. The time and resources help, sure. But talent aside, all the time and resources in the world won't make someone pathological. The best stories consume people in ways that not everyone can or will accept. That's not a judgment on people who won't go to those extremes for a story; there's a good argument to be made that it's insane. But it is a judgment on people who think they could do it, If only.

 

Amen. When I was a young buck in the business writing for suburban newspapers, I used to read those long pieces in SI (Gary Smith and the like) and think, 'Damn, I could do that if they'd just give me the space and the freedom to do it."

It took a long time -- and a couple of not-terribly-pretty attempts to pull off similar pieces -- for me to realize no, I can't. Can I turn a phrase and put facts together on that level? Hell yes. I believe very much my skills are at that level. But I don't have the patience, the drive or the motivation to do the reporting it takes to pull off anything even close. It's like DD said, I wouldn't even know where to begin.

I really admire those who have what it takes to do this kind of thing.

 

Has someone posted that they could one-up Wright on this story?

 

You mean awful announcing couldn't do this with less money and less time?

 

Great point here; Wright's piece was such a good read and flowed so well, you can forget how much drive and organization skills are needed to pull it off.

I'm way, way down the journalism food chain compared to Wright, but I have dug into a couple of long-term, investigative stories on the news side and it's a tough slog. Besides an endless supply of motivation and drive, you need a solid game plan going in, and the ability to radically revise that plan as you learn more about your subject.

 

No, they could not. (That was a really weird argument, by the way. It was like arguing whether grass grows up.) Obviously, the resources are a big help. Time is the biggest resource of all. Because Wright is on contract, and because ESPN decided it was worth his doing it, he could spend parts of the last two years, and every day of the last six months, working on it. That made it better than if he had two weeks. We can all agree on that, right? But I could also give lots of writers, including the writer to whom you are referring, six months to write this story, and it wouldn't be as good as what Wright did.

Writers get thorny about that, because it's tough to look at yourself and admit you didn't want it as much or didn't have the same talent, but it's the equivalent of a decent golfer telling himself he could play on the PGA Tour if only he had more time to dedicate to his game. We all know he couldn't. He might improve if he played more, but the professionals would still be better. (I know a guy who thought he could play on the Champions Tour because he could catch up by the time he was 50; I was like, "Um, you'll be playing against guys who won Majors.") It's nice to think otherwise, and maybe it's impolite or mean or arrogant to express the contrary thought out loud, but I think it's just as arrogant for someone to look at a genuine top-flight talent and dismiss his or her gifts as a simple function of luck or opportunity.

Luck helps. Time helps. Money helps. Good editing helps. The writer still matters, because the words matter most of all.

 

Just a guess, but I think JC's post should have been in blue.

 

I was being sarcastic.

It was a very weird argument he was making.

 

I thought you were being sarcastic, but that argument was so weird, I'm still suffering a case of the quivers from it.