HBO: Tiger (2021)

[bubbagump]

Take Away 1: Riveting. 

 

Take Away 2: Rachel Uchitel has aged, horrifically.  

Edited January 19, 2021 by bubbagump

[tgreenwood11]

2 hours ago, bubbagump said:

Take Away 1: Riveting. 

 

Take Away 2: Rachel Uchitel has aged, horrifically.  

I had lips like that once.  A guy in high school beat the hell out of me.  😂

[sailfishchris]

My opinion. Tiger finally seems at peace with his life now. Playing PNC with his son. Shedding his "aloof" personality over the last few seasons-Enjoying golf. This struck me as a hit job. I don't condone the behavior of his past. But, it's done why the rehash?

 

[capking]

4 hours ago, bubbagump said:

Take Away 1: Riveting. 

 

Take Away 2: Rachel Uchitel has aged, horrifically.  

Wow hot take... she’s 45 and in HD

[capking]

1 hour ago, sailfishchris said:

My opinion. Tiger finally seems at peace with his life now. Playing PNC with his son. Shedding his "aloof" personality over the last few seasons-Enjoying golf. This struck me as a hit job. I don't condone the behavior of his past. But, it's done why the rehash?

 

Did you watch it and come to this conclusion? They didn’t even go very hard on him, could’ve been way worse. 

[PedronNiall]

6 hours ago, tgreenwood11 said:

I watched the whole thing. I didn't learn much of anything new except it confirmed what I knew for years, Bryant Gumbel is a total jerk with a major chip on his shoulder.

 

Really enjoyed Real Sports on the whole because it had amazing presenters/investigators, but literally anyone who got on Gumbel's bad side was skewered on the show. He has some issues to put it mildly when it comes to being objective or treating people with basic human dignity at times.

 

On top of that he's all for fixing issues in sports, unless it's a fix he doesn't like. He will not see reason, logic, or truth if he doesn't like what he's hearing. I think it's pretty clear why he wades in a very specific pool and really hasn't been a part of anything he's not directly heading since the Today Show back in the 90s.

[00steven]

I thought it was about what I’d expect. Wish they would have done a part three focusing more on his comeback. It felt a bit rushed in the end.

[bscinstnct]

Well, I watched about 25 minutes of part 2. And 5 minutes of part 1.

 

Just in the 5 minutes you see the galleries TW had

 

Before he even went pro! 

The hype and the pressure were huge and TW crushed it beyond anyone’s expectations.
 

This quote (not from the movie) from Feinstein sums it up....

 

 

 

“The first time I laid eyes on Tiger Woods was in March 1994 at Bay Hill for Arnold Palmer's tournament. I was standing on the range on Wednesday afternoon, talking to Peter Jacobsen, Davis Love III and Billy Andrade. Billy pointed down the range at a skinny kid hitting balls. "You know who that is?" he said.

 

"You should know," Billy continued. "That's Tiger Woods. He's the Next One."

 

I did know the name. A phenom from California. In fact, his father, Earl, was already on IMG's payroll as a "junior talent scout."

 

I hadn't paid that much attention. My focus was on the players who were on the tour at that moment, and I tended to be skeptical about Next Ones. I still remember Brent Musburger comparing Jeff Lebo to Jerry West when Lebo was a freshman basketball player at North Carolina. I had seen what being the Next One in tennis had done to Jennifer Capriati, and I remember reading a Rick Reilly piece in Sports Illustrated years earlier on how Love and Fred Couples were the Next Ones in golf.

 

"I thought you and Fred were the Next Ones," I said to Love.

 

"Not like this kid," Love said.

 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.golfdigest.com/story/golf-tiger-woods-john-feinstein-book/amp

 

Great piece about TW and the “Woods camp” in the early years..

 

 

 

[sailfishchris]

2 hours ago, capking said:

Did you watch it and come to this conclusion? They didn’t even go very hard on him, could’ve been way worse. 

Yeah watched it. Again, my opinion. Hey Tiger, your dad was a womanizer. They raised you with no thought but making you a golfer. Wow, Tiger, your ex-caddy feels like you should still be friends....etc. Whether you feel (your opinion) they went easy or not. It felt like a cheap hit piece. YOMV.

 

[qtlaw]

I was as big a Tiger fan as there was, watched him win the 3 US Amateurs then the Masters in '97 all the way through.  This doc showed me things I didn't know and found fascinating.  Yes the affairs are included, have to be, but the nugget is the Asst. Pro telling about how Earl and him showed him when Tiger was just a young boy that womanizing was okay, that was truly heart-breaking.  We see it in life every day, kids do what those around them do, especially the grown-ups.

 

What is also sad is how you hear Earl say "Tiger's my boy, my dream" and yet he doesn't say anything about his other kids, Cheyenne and her siblings.  As a father, that's so wrong.

 

See Tiger have the chipping yips was something I remember for sure but seeing it again?  Ugly.

[ivygynonc]

1 hour ago, qtlaw said:

I was as big a Tiger fan as there was, watched him win the 3 US Amateurs then the Masters in '97 all the way through.  This doc showed me things I didn't know and found fascinating.  Yes the affairs are included, have to be, but the nugget is the Asst. Pro telling about how Earl and him showed him when Tiger was just a young boy that womanizing was okay, that was truly heart-breaking.  We see it in life every day, kids do what those around them do, especially the grown-ups.

 

What is also sad is how you hear Earl say "Tiger's my boy, my dream" and yet he doesn't say anything about his other kids, Cheyenne and her siblings.  As a father, that's so wrong.

 

See Tiger have the chipping yips was something I remember for sure but seeing it again?  Ugly.

I don't think Earl is Cheyenne's dad.  I think he is her granddad.  

[SnapHooker_307]

On 1/19/2021 at 7:22 PM, 00steven said:

I thought it was about what I’d expect. Wish they would have done a part three focusing more on his comeback. It felt a bit rushed in the end.

Agreed 100%. I was extremely surprised how they basically brushed over the 2018 Tour Championship and went straight to the Masters. The Masters was incredible but I remember being almost more amazed at the Tour Championship win to be honest, wasn't as surprising to me that he won the Masters after that.

Edited January 21, 2021 by SnapHooker_605

[FredWomble]

I wasn't planning to watch just because I feel like I know the story well enough, essentially witnessing it about as long as I can remember, being almost exactly 4 years older than TW. I had all the SIs (still do) and remember recording the unbelievable Pebble Beach US Open on the VCR (look that up, kids ;)). This discussion led me to watch on HBO max this weekend. 

 

Main conclusion is nothing at all shocking, I do think Tiger is a sympathetic figure. I've evolved over the years; initially I viewed the guy with disdain. His daughter was born several weeks after my own, first child for both of us. "Tiger Woods"... one of the first people my kid could call out on sight before she was 2, because I was such a big golf fan. So that made it a little personal, like many I think, he became a villain. But as much responsibility as is surely merited, the downfall was somewhat predictable or at least not a surprise. For all he's been through and done to himself, Tiger's Masters win 2019 remains one of the most amazing sports comeback stories. 

 

Armchair amateur psychiatry, the Earl angle is so complex. Tiger clearly loved his father deeply and Earl was of course Dr. Frankenstein (someone in the documentary described him that way). You wonder how Earl's love would have manifested if Tiger hadn't found fame and fortune through golf. It seems he threw away his other children after all by comparison to focus solely on raising Tiger to be such a special golfing talent. The biggest revelation to me was the supposed Winnebago behavior. If factual, Tiger's eventual infidelity was pretty much a given. His parents made him a phenom beyond belief but failed in raising a complete man. 

 

And while holding Tiger accountable for being a terrible husband and father when he was married, the "other women" shown seemed like opportunists, especially Uchitel. Find her accounts of their affair highly suspicious. She makes it out as a true love story where she was truly "the one." Other flings seemed to suggest the same.  Who knows, maybe that's all legit, but I think it was as simple as Tiger being a cad versus his somehow pretending they were anything more than...well, you know. Uchitel comes across as phony as her physical appearance. 

[Need4spd]

On 1/19/2021 at 1:43 PM, bubbagump said:

Take Away 1: Riveting. 

 

Take Away 2: Rachel Uchitel has aged, horrifically.  

 

On 1/19/2021 at 6:30 PM, capking said:

Wow hot take... she’s 45 and in HD

Seriously. If I ever get married, I’ll be extremely happy to have a wife who looks like her at 45.

[soregongolfer]

3 hours ago, Need4spd said:

 

Seriously. If I ever get married, I’ll be extremely happy to have a wife who looks like her at 45.

45 isn't that old.  There are plenty of 45+ women at my gym who look much better.

[wobbles]

I’ve wondered over time if Tiger has Asbergers given how he has chosen to handle relationships with other humans. The dalliance with the Perkins Fried Chicken waitress was a sad case... she seemed bowled over by things he had promised her but of course he was insincere to her as with the others.

[MattyO1984]

Managed to watch this over the weekend. My wife, who will taken a very small passing interest in golf also watched it.

 

My takeaway - if you have read the book Tiger Woods by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, then this really added nothing substantially new to the story. Earl been a womaniser and a drinker, etc, etc was well known that is for sure. Just how close those dalliances came to TW though (the Winnebago) was a surprise. The reporter from the National Enquirer was revolting. He seemed to reveal in and enjoy the pain that publications of his type can cause to people and that is more of damning indictment on the sheer level of scum that writers of his type are than the subjects of that writing. 

 

My wife - surprised at exactly how little of a childhood Tiger had. The combination of Earl and Kultida meant he never stood a chance of becoming anywhere near a normal human being. That said, she didn’t get to the point of feeling sorry for him. Upbringing and circumstance can have a huge impact on people and how they act in later life and admittedly, his upbringing and circumstance are an extreme but that in itself is not an excuse for anything that he has done. 

[bubbagump]

12 hours ago, Need4spd said:

 

Seriously. If I ever get married, I’ll be extremely happy to have a wife who looks like her at 45.

 

It was the choices/quality in fillers and injections I was surprised with opposed to her actual age/aging.  After not really seeing her since the whole scandal, I was surprised to see how much her face had changed with those.    

 

I feel bad for how her life has drastically changed course post Tiger, and that not unlike the countless other examples of this kind of thing, seems the celeb/athlete/politician moves on while the other party never really recovers, or shakes the stigma.  

Edited January 25, 2021 by bubbagump

[Greg_B]

8 hours ago, soregongolfer said:

45 isn't that old.  There are plenty of 45+ women at my gym who look much better.

They just had better plastic surgeons.

[BlackDiamondPar5]

1 hour ago, Greg_B said:

They just had better plastic surgeons.

I don't know anyone in their 40's that looks this bad unless they are morbidly obese or something. 

I'd agree with @soregongolfer that there's plenty of 40, 50 and even 60 year olds that look way better than this. I mean seriously that could stop a clock...

[FakeClubPro]

9 minutes ago, BlackDiamondPar5 said:

I don't know anyone in their 40's that looks this bad unless they are morbidly obese or something. 

I'd agree with @soregongolfer that there's plenty of 40, 50 and even 60 year olds that look way better than this. I mean seriously that could stop a clock...

 

Looks a bit like a dude.

 

She is a bigger train wreck than I realized.  She had married and divorced a dude after Tiger.  Recently, she broke up another marriage with a fat bald attorney.  His wife he dumped was better looking.

 

Rachel supposedly got $10 M from Tee Dub Dawg for her silence in 2010 and burned through that.  She recently filed for bankruptcy just before meeting the new married guy.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9164109/Tiger-Woods-mistress-Rachel-Uchitel-filed-bankruptcy-summer.html

[bscinstnct]

You guys...gossiping about lips filler

 

Act like a man!

 

😂

 

 

 

 

The best quote of the show came from TW himself.

 

After the dark days of the drugs and dui, the proclamation of “I’m done” at the Masters dinner,

 

TW has the surgery and gets clean

 

Picks up a club and starts hitting some balls

 

No pain and he thinks,

 

”I can do this”

 

 

 

.

Edited January 25, 2021 by bscinstnct

[capking]

It’s funny how people in this thread will say leave the personal life stuff alone with Tiger... then Gossip about the woman who’s life was actually ruined because of Tiger. 

[BlackDiamondPar5]

1 minute ago, capking said:

It’s funny how people in this thread will say leave the personal life stuff alone with Tiger... then Gossip about the woman who’s life was actually ruined because of Tiger. 

I agree in part.  The personal life for a sports figure is fair game when they sell an image to endorse products.  The personal life of a woman whom got involved with a married man with a high public profile... She assumed the risk.

[FakeClubPro]

2 hours ago, capking said:

It’s funny how people in this thread will say leave the personal life stuff alone with Tiger... then Gossip about the woman who’s life was actually ruined because of Tiger. 

Which woman?  I am not a fanboi but I am not a hater either.  His ex-wife or this demonic Rachel woman?  This Rachel seems to con a lot of dudes.   She is or really WAS kind of hot in a bad girl kind of way but seems like 100% trouble,  Some guys have no clue.

[Greg_B]

9 minutes ago, FakeClubPro said:

She is or really WAS kind of hot in a bad girl kind of way but seems like 100% trouble,  Some guys have no clue.

 

True on both counts. Tiger was in that last category.

 

Uchitel's Wiki page seems to have ended with no updates newer than 6 or 7 years of age, but even at that, it was your typical fast-lane life. That takes its toll on one's appearance.

[BraxtonFullerton]

On 1/19/2021 at 7:10 PM, sailfishchris said:

My opinion. Tiger finally seems at peace with his life now. Playing PNC with his son. Shedding his "aloof" personality over the last few seasons-Enjoying golf. This struck me as a hit job. I don't condone the behavior of his past. But, it's done why the rehash?

 

 

Because people care, it puts eyes onto their programming and here you are commenting on it online... so that's why the rehash.

It's not a "hit job." It was 100% true, Tiger, mostly through his father's influence and wanting to be the man Earl tried to make him into, was cold, lonely, and desperate for companionship he felt he was never able to have growing up.

As painful as it may be; I hope the take-away for anyone watching is to be careful how you treat others in your life; and then to look at how we deify and treat celebrities in our society today.

[Abh159]

Maybe someone already mentioned this, but I didn't feel like combing through 300+ replies to see if they had....

 

Does anyone else feel like Tiger might want to look into getting a restraining order on the high school girlfriend? I mean it's been 30 years yet every time she spoke both my wife and I kept saying how obsessed she still is with the guy. 

[bscinstnct]

5 minutes ago, BraxtonFullerton said:

 

Because people care, it puts eyes onto their programming and here you are commenting on it online... so that's why the rehash.

It's not a "hit job." It was 100% true, Tiger, mostly through his father's influence and wanting to be the man Earl tried to make him into, was cold, lonely, and desperate for companionship he felt he was never able to have growing up.

As painful as it may be; I hope the take-away for anyone watching is to be careful how you treat others in your life; and then to look at how we deify and treat celebrities in our society today.

The insane thing is that Earl said this, 

 

“I’m going to make a prediction. Before he’s through, my son will win 14 major championships.”

 

That was in 1995.

 

Now, TW was a phenom but still, by that time, nobody was winning majors in numbers anywhere near that.

 

Its like when people say,

 

My kid will be President one day!

 

It was a completely absurd.

 

And Tiger won 15!

 

😂

[soregongolfer]

6 hours ago, Greg_B said:

They just had better plastic surgeons.

No, they take care of themselves much better.  Utchitel looks terrible for 45.