Tiger Woods: "I Peaked At 11"

Time’s Lorne Rubenstein has a fascinating, wide-ranging interview with Tiger Woods that is really worth your time. In it, Tiger talks on coming to grips with his lost abilities, his personal relationships, and his legacy. He’s surprisingly honest throughout, never more so than with this exchange:

Are you able to keep a sense of peace?

I would have to say that, probably, my only peace has been in between the ropes and hitting the shots.

Did you begin to see this after you turned pro, or earlier?

I didn’t play for any attention. I played for the hardware. I wanted to know that I beat everyone in this field, and I wanted them to know that they got their butt kicked. That to me was the absolute pure pleasure of competing. But then, I got noticed for that. But when I first started playing, I was a little kid, say, in the nine and unders, and 11 and under, there was nobody there, but I still want to kick your butt. That never changed. Then people started to take notice of those wins. But I had been doing it since I was very little. By the time I was 11 years old, I had already won 113 tournaments. I peaked at 11, to be honest with you. I went 36 and 0 that year, never lost a tournament, all in California. And I probably had the cutest girlfriend in all of sixth grade. And I had straight As. No A-minuses. They were all perfect A’s. I peaked at 11. I’ve been trying to get back to that since.

Well damn. Tiger might be keeping it a little too 100 as of late.

[ Time]

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