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Bob Harig And His New Book, "Drive - The Lasting Legacy of Tiger Woods" · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  I get to talk about one of my favorite topics, the game of golf.
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  The book is Drive, The Lasting Legacy of Tiger Woods. The author
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  is Bob Herrick. Bob is a notable writer of the game of golf,
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  writing for Sports Illustrated formerly ESPN Tampa Bay Times. He's a Floridian as well.
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  It's great to have Bob Harrig on the program this morning. Bob,
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  let's talk about the timing of the book. What made this the right time
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  to talk or write about Tiger? Well, I just figured that the five
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  year anniversary of his twenty nineteen Masters win, and it's kind of hard to
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  believe that much time has gone by already, was a good time to re
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  examine it. And in diving into it, obviously there was a lot that
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  went on for him to win a fifteenth major, his fifth Masters. He
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  had had a very very serious back surgery just two years before, and I
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  think I thought a deep dive into the backstory of that win would be enlightening
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  for people. But as I got into it, I realized that, you
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  know, that sort of Tiger's career, it's his to come back from something
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  like that was sort of unheard of, and yet he's sort of been doing
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  that his entire entire career. He just doesn't say no, he doesn't quit.
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  He doesn't He has this resiliency that most of us don't have. And
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  so that's what I tried to explore here. It goes beyond the twenty nineteen
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  Masters into a lot of his great accomplishments and how he got there. If
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  you were to maybe pinpoint for us the beginning of I'll borrow your word for
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  the title, the drive to the twenty nineteen Masters, what was that point,
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  Well, the beginning was probably two years before at the Master's Champions dinner
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  that he attended and he could barely walk, and I don't think he believed
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  at the time it was the beginning of a return to when the Masters.
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  He just he was trying to get through the night, and he had plans
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  to go overseas to consult with specialists and how to best get some relief.
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  Frankly, he was looking for quality of life. His handlers basically had come
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  to the conclusion that we got to find a way for this guy. He's
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  still young. He was forty one at the time. We need to figure
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  out a way that he can play with his kids and play leisure golf and
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  walk properly. And so they went and visited these consultants in London for a
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  battery of tests, and they came back with the recommendation that he go see
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  a spinal fusion doctor in Texas, and that occurred quickly. Two weeks later
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  he came back and without anybody knowing about it, had this surgery, was
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  announced out for six months, couldn't swing a club, A lot of doubts
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  about his return, and yet the very following years he thought eighteen he was
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  back to playing golf and playing quite well. Bob. When Tiger went through
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  the difficulties of his personal life with the reports of the extramarital affairs and all
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  of that, as a golfer, I thought, okay, he's done,
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  because golf is so much between the left and the right ear. But the
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  fact that he wasn't done, that he recovered from all of that between the
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  years, is that sort of the undergirding to the drive his real inner character
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  and determination. That was certainly part of it, because that was really hard
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  to overcome. I mean, that's another aspect I address. And you know
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  that was the rest of them, A lot of them were physical. This
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  one was was a huge mental burden, and you know, he was embarrassed
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  and he spent a good bit of time getting ridiculed. And it was the
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  first time in his life that really had faced any adversity in terms of his
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  his personality, you know, his aura. You know, he was mocked.
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  Uh there was his peers that that bought less of them and he and
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  he actually, you know he was he was away from golf for five months.
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  Uh and and he picked the Masters to come back out of all places.
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  You know, it wasn't going to be like this, this subtle return.
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  It was at the biggest tournament of all and and he somehow finished fourth.
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  Uh And yet he was it was probably one of the rare times that
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  there was some inkling of of not giving it his all on the last day.
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  He put himself in a position to maybe win that tournament. But he
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  was so down on himself for for how well he was playing, when really
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  he should have recognized that, man, I'm I'm playing way beyond what anybody
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  expected. Uh. And yet he still finished spot that Phil Nicholson that year,
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  having gone through all of that, and you know, it's just sort
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  of another example of his resiliency of his drive, that he that he was
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  able to overcome all that negativity and himself at least in that position when you're
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  tackling a topic, even if you're looking at the window of what surrounded his
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  win in twenty nineteen at the Master's Bob, it's Tiger Woods. I mean,
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  you could argue Jack Nicholas is the greatest champion of golf, but it's
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  hard to argue that anyone's had a greater overall impact on the game. How
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  did you determine what you were going to fit within the scope of this story,
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  because, as you said, it just broadens itself because of who Tiger
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  Woods is, right, no question, Well, there were you know,
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  as I was getting into it, I started thinking back to all the time,
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  in all the instances where it required a lot more than just his skill
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  to get there. For example, he has a PGA Tour record one hundred
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  and forty two consecutive made cuts. Now that might be one of his most
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  underrated feats because it's just, you know, just making the cut, right.
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  The longest cut on the PGA Tour at this moment is forty two by
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  Xanderschoffwey. That's one hundred behind Tiger. Tiger didn't miss a cut for seven
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  years. And it's human nature that, and the game of golf is such
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  that you're not going to always have it. Sometimes a guy's playing two three
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  weeks in a row, and then the third week he's out of gas,
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  his game's a little off, he's missing home, and on Friday, you
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  know, early Friday afternoon, he's a couple over part. He starts thinking,
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  you know, it'd be great to have the weekend off, and his
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  mind starts to wander, you know, and it's just it's human nature.
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  He starts thinking about his flights and I can work on my game at home,
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  I can see the kids. Whatever, I'll get back after it next
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  week. Tiger never let that happen for seven years, from nineteen ninety eight
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  to two thousand and five. Now, there was a few events in there
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  that didn't have thirty six hole cuts, but everybody else face the same thing.
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  The fact that he made it all those times was really pretty remarkable,
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  and I mean, nobody's gotten halfway since. And the record that he beat
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  of Byron Nelson was one hundred and thirteen, which was accomplished at a different
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  era when no offense to Byron Nelson, who was a terrific great golf for
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  Hall of Fame golfer himself, that it was done in the nineteen forties when
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  there wasn't as much competition and they probably wasn't full fields all the time,
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  you know, a tiger did. There was just you know, but yet
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  we don't talk about that like we do all of his wins and his majors
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  and you know, some of the feats that he's accomplished. But yet that's
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  one that shows this is resiliency. You have to have an incredible mindset to
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  keep doing that. And there's other examples. You know, at the Masters
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  in twenty twenty, the year he was defending, you know, it was
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  the COVID year, there was no spectators and on the same hole where a
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  year before the tournament changed for him to part three twelve, he hit three
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  balls in the water and made a ten. It's his highest score ever as
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  a pro on any hole. And you know he could have just mailed it
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  in after that. It's the last round and he birdied five of the last
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  six. You know, he has a lot of pride. The man has
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  a lot of pride and he wasn't going to finish, you know, with
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  a whimper. You know, even though it didn't really matter. He doesn't
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  care at this point if he finishes thirtieth or fortieth, it doesn't matter,
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  last tournament of the year for him. And yet he just dug down and
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  did that. And I think those are some pretty good examples of what we're
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  talking about. Can't wait to get my hands on the book, Bob.
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  Like all your work, really great stuff, and as a lover of the
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  game of golf, I appreciate what you do. And thanks for joining me
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  this morning. Appreciate you having me, Thank you, Thank you, Sir
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  Bob Herrig. The book Drive the Lasting Legacy of Tiger Woods. Trust me
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  when I tell you, Bob's a very, very good writer, and this
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  is a good book to get your hands on if you love the game of
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  golf or follow sports in general, because Tiger Woods shaped golf as it is
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  right now. Just ask any player who plays back with more of The Morning
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  Show with Preston Scott