Q&A With Robert Lusetich

Robert Lusetich's engaging Unplayable was released two weeks ago and stands up as a compelling look at Tiger's "tumultuous" 2009 season. Lusetich's firsthand account of a majority of Tiger appearances is enhanced by rare access to key members of Team Tiger.

Unplayable is by no means a recap of the post-November 27th events, though Lusetich does touch on the aftermath and helps us better understand the complicated world of Woods better than any other book attempting to examine the golfing great.

GS: Give us an idea where you were with the book on November 27th and what you had to do to address Tiger's accident along with the ensuing fallout?
 
RL: I had about a month to finish the manuscript when the sticky stuff hit the fan. It threw a wrench in the works, obviously, but mainly because those around Tiger went underground, making it impossible to find out what really was going on. I spent five years early in my career in politics - on both sides of the fence, media and government - but even during major crises, you'd always find someone to talk. Not Team Tiger. So it took a while for me to piece it all together, which I ultimately did in the final chapter of Unplayable that I called The Reckoning. But all along I was writing the story of Tiger's return from knee reconstruction with the intention of using back story to answer the question, Who is Tiger Woods? Personally, I like Tiger and I don't think he's a bad guy. Flawed, indulged and sometimes petulant but not unlikable in the way, say, Barry Bonds has no discernable redeeming character qualities. So in that sense, the events of Thanksgiving only added more layers to a character who's far more complex than his management firm, IMG, or his corporate partners wanted us to believe.


GS: You cover 2009 in great detail but do not acknowledge the rumors of an incident at the Open Championship. When did you first have an inkling something was up with his off-course life?
 
RL: There are plenty of rumors I don't acknowledge because, frankly, an unsourced piece of gossip that appears in a Fleet Street tabloid is usually worth its weight in air. If that story from Turnberry had legs, I'd have thought the hounds of London would've fleshed it out but it remained in the realm of rumor. Certainly no one I spoke with thought it was true. That said, I got the idea Tiger and Elin's marriage was going through a rocky period during the summer. Their body language wasn't good on the few occasions I saw them together (and that's another thing, those occasions were very, very few). But I figured married couples go through their ups and downs, so what was I to conclude? Like nearly everyone else, I had no idea he was leading this secret life. The closest he came to giving it away was telling bawdy jokes, which he loves to do.


GS: Early in the book you noted that you were hoping to get some cooperation from Tiger and received the reply that because you'd be profiting off of him, therefore, you were bad news. What do you make of this mentality and how do you think Tiger rationalizes that view since the people closest to him profit the most off of his success?
 
RL: I'd be very interested in knowing how much of what Mark Steinberg, his agent, decides is run past Tiger. It was not Tiger but Steinberg who tried to shut me down; perhaps understandably given what we now know. Tiger, I have to say, was very generous and friendly with me throughout the year. I'd always been fair with him and I liked to follow him during rounds and watch him play, which I think he respects in a writer. If I had a question, I'd follow him after a news conference or a round or a practice session and he never turned me down. That said, I think he's felt people have been making money off him since he was a kid and he doesn't like it at all. Like a lot of self-made rich men who come from modest means, he values every dollar he earns. As I write in the book, I guess I think too much like a storyteller and not enough like an agent. As for rationalizing his views on those profiting off him, I reveal in the book that Tiger gives IMG only five per cent on the deals they get him, as opposed to the industry standard of 20 per cent. He'd think that was a good deal for him.


GS: At the Players the vibe between Stevie and Tiger seemed less cohesive than in the past.  What do you make of the current relationship between Steve Williams and Tiger and do you see the partnership continuing?
 
RL: I think it will but it's hard to say. I think Steve was very disappointed in Tiger's nocturnal activities. Steve's a very professional, straight shooting type of character and the Tiger he knows is, too, so their relationship definitely suffered in the wake of the sex scandal. Add to that Steve's concern that he was being painted as either a fellow partyer or an enabler when he was neither. Tiger kept him in the dark for a number of reasons, some to do with the fact that Steve's wife and Elin are good friends. All of that said, I think the issue at Charlotte and The Players was that Tiger was distracted - I'd never seen him so down - and I don't think golf was his main focus with the divorce looming. To boot, he just played badly, so all of that I think had more to do with their respective dispositions.
 

GS: What do you make of the 2010 events and the state of Tiger's game?

RL: I make of it that I'll have much material for the coming editions of Unplayable! It's really hard to believe how unstable everything about Tiger's become when just over six months ago many would've thought of him as the most stable big-time athlete on the planet. I honestly have no idea how his story plays out from here; I've learned not to be surprised by anything when it comes to Tiger. As for his game, I felt the move away from Hank Haney was coming. Tiger knew it after the Masters, which is when he cut Hank off. Though in Tiger's non-confrontational style, he didn't actually say anything to Hank about it, just stopped calling and texting. I've been critical of Hank because to me it's unacceptable that Tiger Woods can't hit a driver. As I reveal in the book, he's the only guy on the PGA Tour who hits down five degrees on his driver. This is insane. He's making a seven iron swing on a driver, hence he has to have a very short shaft and a lot of loft just to get the ball in the air and when he squeezes it his very in-to-out swing path sees shots starting right and going more right. He's very scared of the lefts though how much worse could the pull hook be than the right of right block? As we saw at Turnberry, he has no chance in a left-to-right crosswind, especially if the fairway slopes left to right, too. But it wasn't just Hank, to be fair. Tiger's always made the big putts but he's starting to miss big ones and his short game has been spotty, too. How much has all of this had to do with the secret life he was leading? There are just so many questions hanging over the guy's head. My guess is that he'll take time to re-configure his swing - I have a feeling he's going to go at it alone for a while - but the grander question won't be whether he finds his swing again but whether he finds Tiger Woods.