The man in the desert robe looks uncomfortable, so I change the subject to Al Ruwaya. His smile returns. The deal, he says, has been in the works for more than two years. He says the original site was Palm Jumeirah, a cluster of man-made islands in the Arabian Gulf sculpted to look like a palm tree from the air. He says Sheikh Mohammed vetoed that plan, arguing that it would be redundant to put one landmark—the first Tiger Woods course—on another landmark, the islands. Better that it be built at Dubailand, which will make Disney World look like a petting zoo.
I get nowhere, however, when I press for details about Tiger's contract with Tatweer, a subsidiary of Sheikh Mohammed's Dubai Holding. Will Tiger be paid up front, or will he collect a royalty on properties in Tiger Woods-Dubai? What is Tiger's design fee for Al Ruwaya? Does the contract include Tiger's multimillion-dollar appearance fee for playing in the Dubai Desert Classic? "Money is not a big issue for Tiger," says the man in the desert robe. "Nor for us."
Tiger could use a banana. Or a deck of cards. Or a PlayStation2 running Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007. . . .
"I hate sitting still," he says from across the table. "I hate being stale. I've always got to be moving. I've always got to be challenged." He says this while sitting still, but I have no reason to doubt him. Tiger in a conference room is a cat in a cage. Tiger at a press conference is a schoolboy writing I will not talk in class a hundred times on the blackboard.
"Tiger, you're about to become a father for the first time," says the reporter in the third row. "Is that going to affect your preparation for the majors?"
"Tiger, you're an expectant father," says the perky blonde, waving a foam-covered microphone in his face. "Are you ready for diaper duty?"
"Tiger, the way you were raised by your father is the stuff of legend," says the long-form writer with crumbs in his beard. "If your firstborn happens to be a son, will you raise him to be a champion or take more of a laissez-faire approach to child rearing?" "Tiger...."
"Tiger...."
If, as Tiger likes to say, "a day without adrenaline is a day wasted," then a day of meet-and-greet must be pure hell. But those who chart his business course say that Tiger is as competitive wearing a tie as he is in a Sunday-red polo.
"He's a real pro in either environment," says Cindy Davis, domestic general manager for Nike Golf. "He has endless energy. Everything to Tiger is an adventure."
That must be why Tiger is partial to stunts. A few years ago he smacked balls off the helipad of Dubai's 60-story Burj Al Arab Hotel. Another time he livened up a golf ball commercial by shattering factory windows with precisely aimed five-iron shots. It is a stunt, in fact, that has drawn a bevy of us faux-auditor types to L.A.'s Hawthorne Airport. On Nov. 28, 2006, the press release promises, Tiger Woods will christen Nike's squarish Sumo2 driver by hitting balls down the runway. (Hoped-for headline: tiger crushes drive 1,900 yards!)
But when he finally saunters out onto the pavement and starts launching rockets, there is a bit of a letdown. A runway, it turns out, makes drives look less impressive than usual, owing to the absence of a backdrop.
Tiger, though, takes pains not to disappoint. Speaking from a stage in a vacant hangar, he praises Nike across the board—"Now we are a leader in the golf industry"—but concedes that he probably won't use the Sumo2 in competition. "I do hit it farther, but I launch it a little too high." (Nike recently recalled the driver after the U.S. Golf Association ruled that some of the clubs exceeded the organization's testing limits.)
