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The next day, as we leave Scottsdale and continue our flight over the American heartland in the Nike corporate jet, I ask Bob Wood for an appraisal of Tiger Woods, businessman.
"Tiger is a sponge," he says. "He has an incredible memory, and he's had years to soak up information from people who work for large companies." Wood pauses, as if waiting for a presentation graphic. "Whatever he gets into, he gets into all the way. Right now, it's skiing. He's a nut for skiing, and every time I talk to him he knows more about skiing. That's how he is." He pauses again, letting me savor the mental image of Tiger in goggles pursuing his wife, an accomplished skier, down a black diamond. "He's a complete control freak. He always wants to determine the outcome."
I nod.
"He's very comfortable in his own skin. He doesn't have a posse. He doesn't walk around with a bunch of yes-men."
I nod.
"He's smart enough to know that every strength is a weakness." That one is sufficiently Zen to stop my nodding. "Is he a new Tiger?" I ask. "Is he playing more than one game?" "Well, he's running the foundation, now that his father is gone. That's a pretty daunting part-time gig for a 31-year-old." Wood shakes his head. "But no, he's still focused on winning majors."
Of course he is. But Tiger doesn't sleep a lot . . . and if he can use those otherwise wasted hours before dawn to, say, plot a white-knight takeover of a PGA Tour event.... Or perhaps I should call it a coup, inasmuch as the AT&T National, scheduled to debut in or near Washington, D.C., around the Fourth of July, will be played within eavesdropping range of the White House.
"If you ever have to choose between announcing a golf tournament sponsorship or testifying before Congress," AT&T chairman Ed Whitacre says at a March 7 press conference with Tiger and PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, "my advice to you is to take the golf tournament."
The new event, hosted by Tiger and run by and benefiting the Tiger Woods Foundation, replaces the International in Castle Rock, Colo., which folded in February after 21 years.
Here's where an auditor has to get creative. Looking at first quarter 2007, I see that Tiger's seven-event PGA Tour winning streak ended on Feb. 23, when he lost to Nick O'Hern at the Accenture Match Play. But there's no compensating line item for Tiger's 10-and-8 reaming of International founder Jack Vickers in the Who-Gets-to-Host-a-Tour-Event Classic.
The 81-year-old Vickers, a one-time oil tycoon, is the guy who complained that Tiger's failure to play in his tournament since 1999 had halved television ratings and made it impossible to land a title sponsor. "If something isn't done," Vickers tells me over a bowl of asparagus soup at Castle Pines Golf Club in February, "you're not going to have a Tour. Right now, it's a one-man show."
Yes, I think, and as an astute Wall Street analyst once shouted at Tiger, "You da man!"
In any event, I'm checking commodity prices on Bloomberg TV the other day when the network runs video of Tiger, in coat and tie, paying courtesy calls to House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid. Then Tiger is behind a nest of microphones, explaining how he and his dad had always dreamed of running their own Tour event. And because Earl had been a Vietnam vet and a career soldier, Tiger's thrilled to be hosting a tournament celebrating America's birthday while honoring America's warriors who, by the way, will be offered free admission to the tournament, as will children under 12.
At this point there must have been a technical foul-up, because there is no video of fireworks bursting over the Washington Monument. But Finchem and Whitacre are practically floating off the dais, and I'm reaching for my checkbook to contribute to the Tiger Woods for President exploratory committee.
Bloomberg moves on, but I picture Tiger stepping back from the podium and delivering one of his signature fist pumps.
I thumb a message to Vickers on my Blackberry, quoting Andy Grove, the cofounder and former chairman of Intel. Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive. Maybe I should send it to Finchem instead.
