Sean Foley On Tiger, Nelson Mandela And Johnny Miller

From part one of Brian Wacker's "exclusive" Sean Foley Q&A at PGATour.com. It's exclusive because PGATour.com is acknowledging someone in golf who is not a member of the PGA Tour.

Nonetheless, as with any Foley interview, it's not short on engaging topics including Johnny Miller's recent comments about passing on the chance to teach Tiger, and this...

Q: I want to go back to that day about 10 years ago when you were sitting in a bar in Canada with Sean Casey, who's now the director of golf at Glen Abbey, and you saw Tiger Woods on television and you said "I'm going to coach him one day." What made you think you could?

SEAN FOLEY: I used to say it and then be met with a phase of ridicule. There are some things that are difficult to explain. It's like asking anyone about ideas like God or destiny. It's really difficult to put into terms and into words and to quantify. I can tell you that there probably weren't many people who ever thought [I would coach him]. But I've seen people like Nelson Mandela get thrown in jail and stay in jail for 27 years and then come out and become the president of the country. It's not just that he became president, but he came out forgiving his oppressors.

Even though that has nothing to do with my situation, to me as a kid, it was like, OK, if he's capable of that, what am I capable of? I always wanted to teach golf. There were a lot of things I wanted to do, and that's the benefit of being so young. And I just thought it would be cool.