Tiger 2.0

When my SI came, I immediately turned to this story and started reading it. I struggled with it at times, and felt like many of you that there was a bit too much first-person stuff in it.

Then I turned to the beginning of the magazine and saw the editor's note. Personally, I think the worst thing McDonnell did was letting us know that Garrity spend six months tailing Tiger. As soon as I saw that, I thought to myself, are you serious? he followed him for six months and all he got was 10 minutes for an interview???

It really changed my opinion of the piece, and not for the better.

Also, I think there is a time and a place for primarily first-person pieces. I haven't read the Verducci piece yet, but those kinds of things interest me because its something a very small segment of the population gets to do (plus, every sports fan thinks they'd be a great game official because how hard can it be?). Last baseball season, one of my colleagues, who was a college catcher, strapped the pads on again to catch Red Sox prospect Charlie Zink so he could see just how easy/hard it is to catch the knuckleball. I thought it was great.

 

After three pages of this thread, I was glad to see I was not the only one upset by this piece.

While I understand how difficult this assignment was, they way Garrity placed himself in the story... the tone caught me like he was thumbing his nose at his audience, "look at what I was able to do, look at my personal experiences with Tiger. You wish you were me."

 

Exactly. Screwed ourselves for ripping on them after they gave us exactly what we want: Candid, honest answers. Disagreeing with what they said it one thing. But the reaction went way overboard.

Tiger's equipment was inferior. And I suspect that virtually every PGA golfer was uncomfortable with Sorenstam playing at Colonial, and felt she should just stick to the LPGA. They were just not willing to say so publicly, as VJ was.

Like I said, VJ's rise to golf prominence is remarkable and a great story. Too bad he won't open up more.

 

If that's what you're trying to do, I say lead with it. Come clean right from the outset and make it clear all the strings you pulled and you still can't get more than 10 minutes with Tiger.

Don't couch it in this "Look at me and how cool I am!" bullshit. I thought it was a poorly crafted piece of crap.

 

I can understand that, because that was largely what came out of the story.

But the way it was written . . . bleh. Sounded more like Garrity's story than Tiger's. The questions he asked in his 10 minutes were also nothing special.

And the managing editor's note made it sound like the story had indeed gotten something worthwhile.

 

Couldn't agree more. If you know it's nothing more than a 5,000-word fluff piece, don't build it up to be something more than that. By putting it on the cover and fellating it some more in the Editor's Notes, I got really excited to read it. Then I got about five grafs in and just about tossed the whole magazine in the trash. It was shit.

 

Wanted to chime in afte reading Jones' Woods piece for the first time late yesterday ... And it's fantastic. Have not read Garrity's, but Jones' was very good.

Thanks for the link.

 

Still, the only Tiger stories I've ever enjoyed enough to reread ... Gary Smith's 1996 Sportsman of the Year story, Charles Pierce's "off-color" story from GQ that changed everything, and Jones' read.

Tiger just ain't an interesting quote. Gotta have some good meat from the writers.

 

6 months and 30,000 miles logged and all you end up with is a picture of tiger for your credenza.

I went back and reread and what is worse than story is the letter to readers from Terry Mconell. What a buffoon. First Dwaye Wade mess and now this.

Another example of how he seems to think his readership are idiots.

 

Damn, that's accurate.

I went into the story expecting some blog-like shit and it was...OK. Garrity can write, there's no doubt about that. I thought he did a decent job of explaining that Tiger doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself and those who can make him more gobs of money. I think Garrity had every right to expect some decent access to Tiger based on his past experience with him, and Tiger couldn't have cared less.

My favorite bit was one of the soulless businessmen waxing poetic about how Tiger doesn't surround himself with yesmen. Yet all this guy could do was gush over how great Tiger is, as if he was worried tiger would shut him out of the inner circle if he did anything other than blow sunshine up his ass. It said everything about what Tiger has become and Garrity, who filled the piece with first-person references, didn't have to do a thing.