Review by Booklist Review
Veteran Sports Illustrated reporter and author of one of the best-ever golf memoirs, To the Linksland (1992), Bamberger now weighs in on the biggest golf story of 2019: Tiger Woods' comeback, culminating in his fifth Masters championship. Like others before him (Curt Sampson in Roaring Back, 2019), Bamberger covers all the on-course landmarks (especially Woods' triumph at the 2018 Tour Championship) on the road to the Masters victory, but he also looks deeply into the head of a man who not only recovered from the 2009 sex scandal and the 2017 back-fusion surgery, but who also, in Bamberger's view, refashioned his personality from an icy icon into a more open, empathetic adult. This book, however, is by no means uncritical of Tiger. Lingering rumors of Tiger's possible use of performance-enhancing drugs are examined thoroughly, neither proving nor disproving them, and the golf-rules controversies that plagued the golfer's 2013 season are explored in depth, with Tiger's behavior found wanting in every instance. His possible dependency on opioids after the back surgery and his 2017 DUI are examined as well, with Bamberger finding the seeds of Tiger's mental and physical comeback in his strong reaction to that crisis. In all, this may be the most insightful and evenhanded book written yet about one of the signature athletes of the last 25 years.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Sportswriter Bamberger (Men in Green) aims to shed new insight into the life of championship golfer Tiger Woods, who has made headlines for years, both for his long winning streak and for less laudable personal reasons: a failed marriage, an arrest in 2017, followed by a raft of physical injuries. While he might still be playing, his future was all but written off. In this book, Bamberger examines the golfer's fall from grace, his penance, and his road to redemption, examining Woods through the lens of golf as a sport that sustains the legacy of its forebears. Similar ground is covered in Curt Sampson's Roaring Back (2019). Here, Bamberger also focuses on Woods as he works to resolve personal struggles and open himself up in the process. Perhaps his only significant flaw is the inability to forgive those who, at least in Woods's mind, broke his trust. What Bamberger has done well is show how parents shape their children, in public and private. VERDICT Readers who enjoyed Roaring Back as well as Tiger Woods (2019) by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian will appreciate the insight here.--Steven Silkunas, Fernandina Beach, FL
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The gripping story of the fall and rise of one of golf's greatest players. This is GOLF magazine senior writer Bamberger's second book about a famous golfer whose career was damaged by a sex scandal. The Swinger was a co-authored novel; this is real. As Bamberger tells it, Tiger Woods just didn't fall; he crashed and burned, emotionally and physically. The author describes him as "an inherently private person who leads a massively public life." At a time when "interest in him was almost insatiable" and news of a sex scandal broke on Nov. 25, 2009, the "National Enquirer was treating him as if he were Gary Hart seeking the presidency." Two days later, he crashed his car into a fire hydrant. His wife, Elin, divorced him, taking his two children with her. Woods went into rehab for sex, alcohol, and drug addiction. He lost sponsors and his longtime caddie, Steve Williams. Bamberger offers up two overly long digressions on whether Woods had gotten away with rules infractions in some tournaments and the "messy" topic of whether or not he was taking performance-enhancing drugs. The author suggests readers can jump ahead if the second isn't of interest. He chronicles, in less detail, Woods' many injuries and surgeries. In 2016, Woods sat out the entire golf year, and he started to feel better. Then came May 29, 2017, when a Jupiter, Florida, police officer came up to a vehicle in the dark off the side of the road with two flat tires. In the driver's seat was Woods, clearly impaired, and he was arrested. Woods "had been exposed as never before." Bamberger is at his best recounting in detail Woods' redemptive victory at the Masters in 2019. He thoroughly lays out Woods' faults, but he is still clearly in awe of the "best player in history." Even non-Tiger fans might find this amazing comeback story appealing. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
