Most often at the top of the charts, sometimes fallen very low in disgrace, Tiger Woods, 45, has propelled his sport, golf, into another dimension.
Child prodigy of the greens, precocious talent, exceptional sportsman with the life of a rock star, Eldrick Tont Woods of his real name, symbolizes the American success in what it sometimes has more beautiful but also more cruel.
The planetary shock wave caused by his road accident in Los Angeles from which he emerged seriously injured in a leg, shows that the native of Cypress in California retains an enormous amount of sympathy born of his extraordinary career.
The genius of golf
Eldrick Tont Woods, known as Tiger, born to a black father veteran of Vietnam, and a mother of Thai origin, saw his destiny from childhood embrace the contours of a success story.
Introduced to golf by his father at the age of 2, the gifted person was trained from his first steps to embody the future “Tiger Woods”.
At 3, he was made aware of interviews and made a first demonstration in an American TV show.
Ahead of all split times, the young Tiger crosses adolescence, university and the amateur circuit four to four, launched towards the firmament of world sport.
When he arrived on the golf world in the mid-90s, he aroused extraordinary interest from the start.
Young, outgoing, mixed and sculptural, Tiger captures the light.
Once Woods was on the pro tour in 1996, the singular talent of the golfer ideally overlaps the reputation that precedes him.
Thanks to a more aggressive game, a physical approach to his discipline, a passion that he does not hesitate to express, Woods is shaking up his sport in great width.
And above all, he wins, quickly and a lot.
A phenomenon of precocity, he became the youngest winner of the Masters, the youngest world No. 1, the youngest golfer to win 50 tournaments on the North American circuit.
Between 1996 and 2008, he outrageously dominated his sport, pocketed 14 Grand Slam titles and took golf to another planet.
"Whatever happens, he will leave the image of an athlete who has transformed his sport, technically, athletically, in terms of business, from all points of view," said Philippe Chassepot, journalist, translator of the thick biography. -authorized du Tigre, published in January 2020 (Editions Hugo pocket).
If he had not lost his way for ten years, without winning any Grand Slam between 2009 and 2018, he would have perhaps 30 titles and would far exceed Pelé, Jordan or Federer… ”
Fate has it that Woods stops at 15 Majors and 82 PGA titles.
The latest to date at the Augusta Masters 2019, at the cost of astonishing resilience, after ten years of wandering marked by marital problems, injuries and pangs of all kinds.
His escapades
Venerated on and off the greens, one of the highest paid athlete in the world (a fortune estimated in 2013 at 1.5 billion dollars), Woods saw his private life for the first time slip one evening in November 2009. On the night of the 26th, the untouchable champion, father of two, in his car crashes into a fire hydrant in front of his home.
His wife, Swedish model Elin Nordegren, chases him with a golf club in her hand.
She has just discovered her husband's extramarital affairs ...
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Woods is forced by his sponsors, including the giant Nike of which he is one of the ambassadors, to make a public apology.
These take the form of a televised repentance in front of 40 million Americans.
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Tiger Woods, from hell to resurrection
“Tiger has always been a lonely kid,” Chassepot explains.
He had relatively little social contact apart from two or three people who had the same profile as him.
He trained a lot, he spent a lot of time alone on the course, which then caused him to have relationship problems.
His parents always explained to him that he had to be tough, that he had to be the strongest, never to talk about his weaknesses, he integrated all that and he unfortunately kept a little too much traces in his human relationships and it was then seen in his relations with women… ”
Master of the greens, Tiger Woods has experienced many non-sporting misadventures in his career. / AFP / Williams West
Despite the hardships, however, Woods rebuilt himself and, in four years, regained the position of world No. 1, in 2013. In addition to the first of his five back operations at the end of March 2014, he began therapy to cure his addiction. sex.
At the same time, he has an ultra-celebrity relationship with Lindsey Vonn, the great American skier.
Alas, the idyll comes to an end after two years in May 2015, supposedly weighed down by new infidelities of the champion ...
Another hard blow occurs one evening in May 2017 in Florida.
Woods is arrested semi-unconscious at the wheel of his car, under the influence of a cocktail of antidepressants and various drugs.
The police let filter the anthropometric photo of the accused, which toured the world showing him the haggard eye, the three-day-old beard and the face puffed up by the substances.
Destabilized, Woods nevertheless manages to regain control of his life and relaunch his career, as evidenced by his presence in the American team for the Ryder Cup in France in September 2018 and, especially his 15th major title at the Masters of Augusta in April of the following year.
“The fall and redemption are part of his legend and Americans love it, Judge Chassepot.
Once he returned, golf audiences varied dramatically, depending on whether he was there or not.
"
His injuries
When the car crash in California on Tuesday left Woods with multiple open fractures to his right leg, he was recovering from back surgery in January to remove a fragment of a disc that was pinching a nerve. - discectomy.
"I feel good, I'm just a little stiff, he said on Sunday on the CBS channel, on the sidelines of a tournament he was sponsoring, wondering about his ability to line up at the Augusta Masters, in April.
I still have a scheduled MRI so we'll see if the annulus (
Editor's note: part of the disc between two vertebrae
) is well healed and if I can start having more activities.
"
VIDEO. Tiger Woods accident: "He was very lucky to have made it out alive"
This was the 5th back operation for Woods: a first intervention had taken place at the end of March 2014, then a 2nd and a 3rd very close in September and October 2015. Absent in 2016 and 2017 because of persistent back pain, he underwent a 4th operation in April 2017 (one month before his well-publicized arrest in Florida), aimed at securing two lumbar vertebrae.
“I really doubted I could come back two or three years ago,” he confided in April 2019 after his triumph at Augusta.
I couldn't walk, I couldn't sit or lie down, I couldn't do anything.
But, luckily, I had this operation (
Editor's note: the one in 2017
) and it gave me a chance to have a normal life.
And suddenly I also realized that I could play golf again.
I felt like I could put all the pieces of the puzzle back together so that I could play well and even win.
My body is not the same as it was a few years ago, but I still have good hands […] This victory is perhaps one of the most beautiful because of everything that has happened before.
"
And this time, will he find the resources to rebuild himself and return to his destiny?
“It seems complicated as his body is damaged, says Chassepot.
However, everyone already doubted his return after the operation in 2017. If he gets back on his feet, the desire to play again will be there, I'm sure.
All his life, Woods will have things to prove.
"