Woods subsequently went to a rehab facility in Hattiesburg, Miss., called Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addiction Services. From what I know of his six weeks there, he got nothing out of it. He returned to golf and public life at the Masters in April 2010. Divorce was inevitable. From his return in 2010 to the end of 2015, he played, and he won, but it was different, and he was different. In 2016 and ’17, he barely played at all.
When he returned to a regular schedule in 2018, you could see signs of change. It was after his spinal fusion surgery. After his DUI arrest. Whether it was a PR makeover or more than that I could not say. I believe it was more than that. He never had a win or a response to a win as he did at East Lake in 2018. Ditto for his win at Augusta, seven months later. Georgia shook and then it shook again.
It was a long, long road, to those wins, to the one in Japan last month, to his captaincy of the Presidents Cup next month, in Melbourne. His golf has been different and he’s been different. His road to East Lake, to Augusta, to Tokyo, to the Presidents Cup, began on the driveway of his Isleworth home, 10 years ago, that short trip he took in the Escalade.
Woods’s damage was all self-inflicted, no question about that. But his sex life was his, not ours. Certainly not mine. Don’t want even a little tiny piece of it! The apology he gave, in February 2010, at TPC Sawgrass, made no sense, except as an exercise in public relations. The one on Masters Sunday seven months ago, us to him, makes more sense, at least to this reporter.
Michael Bamberger may be reached at [email protected]
