THE TIGER SLAM

Long before the injuries that would wrack his body and the personal issues that would tarnish his name, Tiger Woods was the best golfer the world had ever seen.

It’s easy to forget this now, what with everything that’s happened since and with Tiger—it was always Tiger, never Eldrick Tont Woods—now approaching eligibility for the senior tour. But if you followed golf (and even if you didn’t) when he made the transition from amateur to professional golfer, you will remember that the effect Tiger had on the sport was nothing short of electric.

He was a sensation, not just because of his ability to play the game but the way he played the game. There were tournaments where he would rout the field as well as head-to-head final rounds where he would master his opponent. He had the potential to break Jack Nicklaus’ record of eighteen major championships. Such was his appeal that it drew new fans to the sport. To say that he was the Michael Jordan of golf wasn’t hyperbole; maybe at the time it was Michael Jordan who was the Tiger Woods of basketball.

Of Tiger’s many accolades during the peak of his talents, one stands out: he not only won all four of the professional tour’s major tournaments, but he did so one after another. While he did not hold each championship during a single tour season (the conventional definition of a “Grand Slam”), he remains only one of five golfers to have won every major tournament at least once—and no golfer since has managed to win four in succession.

It was unreal. You had to be there.

Kevin Cook’s The Tiger Slam: The Inside Story of the Greatest Golf Ever Played is now perhaps the closest anyone will ever get to being there.

The book, quite obviously, is a chronicle of how Tiger achieved his unconventional Grand Slam. It’s also some of the best reportage one may ever find for any sport. A rudimentary understanding of golf will perhaps go a long way to appreciating what the book has to offer. The Tiger Slam comes alive with all manner of detail about the game of golf in general, or Tiger’s peers and mentors, or his performance during individual tournaments that it’s impossible not to come away from the book with a renewed understanding for why it is revered by so many of its adherents.

More than this, Cook somehow captures the very excitement that surrounded Tiger during his unprecedented run of success and provides glimpses of the effort that had to be put in to achieve it. Working on a custom golf ball. Reworking his swing. Developing a short game. Deliberately playing minor tournaments by trying out techniques he planned to bring to bear at the majors. His relationship with his inner circle. These are things that are generally invisible to Tiger’s galleries, yet Cook brings them to life.

The result? A book about golf that is as exciting to read as it was exciting to watch Tiger play at his best.

Cook doesn’t shy away from the controversies that would hound Tiger in his later years and effectively prevent the once-promising star from fulfilling his potential (Nicklaus’ records remain intact). An epilogue to the book takes us to the present precisely to complete the round, so to speak. But Cook does a masterful job of not losing sight of the story: that what happened after cannot take away what happened before, and Tiger’s grand slam of 2000-2001 remains, as individual feats of sportsmanship go, sui generis.

At the dawn of the 21st century, an entirely new generation was becoming entranced with an ancient game, golf. The reason for this surge of interest can be credited to one man: Eldrick “Tiger” Woods. The sheer level of dominance he had over the sport in 2000 and 2001 was punctuated by him winning golf’s four major tournaments consecutively in that time frame. How he did it is captured in this very good book by Kevin Cook.

Cook is an accomplished writer about other sports such as football and baseball and this is his first foray into golf. He does a fine job of bringing the reader on the course during each of those majors, starting with the 2000 U.S. Open at one of golf’s famous courses, Pebble Beach. From there, the reader and Tiger takes in St. Andrews (2000 Open), Valhalla (2000 PGA Championship) and Augusta (2001 Masters). The level of detail captured in Cook’s accounts of Tiger’s play in these tournaments is the best aspect of the book. When a key shot was made by Woods or one of his closest competitors, Cook gave readers details down to the club selection, spin on the ball, the curvature of the flight and its eventual landing spot. For golf enthusiasts, this level of detail is an excellent feature.

Cook does a good job when writing about Tiger’s life away from the course or the practice range. For fans of Woods who have read other books on him or have watched documentaries, there won’t be much new information to be gleaned. I fall into this category but there are some elements that aren’t published much. One of those is how much his mother Tida played in his upbringing and his success in golf. Much has been written and recorded about his father’s role in Woods’ success but little about his mother.

Cook also touches on the argument of whether this accomplishment counts as winning the Grand Slam since the 4 wins did not come in the same calendar year. Because of this controversy, many in the media dubbed the accomplishment the “Tiger Slam”, hence the title of the book. Most of the players Cook interviewed (there were many, another plus for this book) and who expressed an opinion on this say that yes, indeed, Woods accomplished the Grand Slam. While I agree with that sentiment, one doesn’t need to do so to enjoy this book on the most remarkable stretch of golf played by one person in the history of the game.

I wish to thank Avid Reader Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The views expressed are strictly my own.