"Tiger Woods’ catastrophic crash in Los Angeles has cast a spotlight on a low-budget documentary series that featured golf’s biggest star"
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A devastating situation gets no better after reading Meg James and Wendy Lee’s L.A. Times piece detailing what Tiger Woods was headed to when crashing his car in Rolling Hills Estates. Day two of the shoot was to be with quarterbacks Drew Brees and Justin Herbert for a Discovery+/GolfTV/Golf Digest series that originally had grander ambitions. The finger pointing has already begun as to why the star was driving himself to the “set”.
TV giant Discovery typically provides transportation for stars of its productions, arranging professional drivers to deliver the talent to and from sets and location shoots, according to an executive close to the company who was not authorized to comment.
That was the arrangement for this week’s shoot in Rolling Hills Estates, people close to the production said.
It’s unclear why Woods did not opt to have a chauffeur take him to the film site, but Woods is known, in golf circles, to prefer to drive himself to events, often with caddie Joe LaCava in the passenger seat.
(It’s actually TGR’s Rob McNamara the last few years and who visited Woods yesterday at the hospital, contrary to a TMZ report it was LaCava).
Discovery pushed back:
“That’s not a question for Discovery — that’s a question for Tiger’s team,” said Fiona McLachlan, a London-based senior vice president for sports communications for Discovery. McLachlan declined further comment.
Tiger Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, did not respond to requests for comment.
There was also this:
Initially, the Woods project was envisioned as much larger scale, with stunts and a bigger budget, but over time the size and scope were modified. Discovery instead decided on a documentary, “fly-on-the-wall” type production with non-union crews to give it a more intimate feel, people familiar with the matter said.
Had it been a union project, a Teamsters driver could have chauffeured Tiger Woods and any other talent or crew to the film location, said Lindsay Dougherty, an organizer at the Teamsters Local 399, which represents drivers, casting directors and location managers.
This also becomes relevant should it turn out Woods was simply speeding because he was late for the “call time”.
The story also puts a dollar figure on Woods’ Discovery deal.
The series sprung from a four-year deal worth an estimated $35 million that Discovery struck with Woods in November 2018.
At the time, Discovery billed the arrangement as “a strategic partnership” between Discovery, the PGA Tour, GolfTV and Woods. The cable programming giant, which owns several international sports channels, said that it would “collaborate with Woods on a wide range of programming, content creation and storytelling opportunities that will offer fans an authentic and regular look into the life, mind and performance of the game’s ultimate icon.”
Director Peter Berg’s post after hearing of the accident news:
