Tiger Woods has been doing a bit of media lately, ahead of his return to golf at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas on December 1st. After a few false dawns, Tiger is confident he'll make that tournament, judging by how much we've seen of him of late. Last week, he appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, in which he revealed his total addiction to Call of Duty.
This week he has given a much more extensive interview to Charlie Rose on CBS: his first-ever hour-long interview.
By far the most interesting thing to emerge from the interview was a discussion on the regrets he harbors. Well, we say regrets, he only has one.
And it's not the one you think.
Tiger told Rose that his only regret in life was not spending another year golfing at Stanford. Not the divorce. Not the philandering. Nope, Tiger regrets not getting another year of anonymity at Stanford.
Rose put it to Tiger that being Tiger Woods is both a gift and a burden, and asked his opinion of the latter. Tiger responded by saying the obligations he has at tournaments is a burden, along with his loss of anonymity. He is quite clear that this is his one regret:
The only regret I have in life is not spending another year at Stanford. I wish I had. That's the only regret I have, of all the things that have happened to me.
All of the things I've been through have been tough, yes, they've been tough, but they've been great for me.
But I wish I had gone on one more year at Stanford.
Rose did then broach the events and fallout from Thanksgiving 2009 and his "public humiliation". Tiger stressed that he made mistakes, but he didn't regret anything. Here's the transcript:
Tiger Woods (TW): Yeah, I made a bunch of mistakes. But in the end, Elin is my ex-wife, she is one of best friends, and we've had had two beautiful kids.
Charlie Rose (CR): How do you tell your kids, why momma and dadda aren't together?
TW: It's because Daddy made some mistakes. Daddy made some mistakes. And I'd much prefer they heard it from me.
CR: And you've sat down and said you regret what you did?
TW: No, no, I haven't said that. Everybody makes mistakes, and the reason Mommy is living in her house, and Daddy is living in his house is because Daddy made mistakes, and it's ok.
In the very next question, Woods showed the traits we most closely associate with him. He couldn't help breaking into a smile in saying:
Winning is fun. Beating somebody is even better.
And then came the grand finish, as Woods showed the kind of mastery of misdirection that we suspected he always had. Here's another section of the transcript:
CR: Do you believe you'll get 18 majors?
TW: To be honest with you, no.
CR: You've accepted that?
TW I've accepted I'm going to get more.
That's the Tiger we know and are unsure whether we love.
Here's hoping he can get back into contention at Augusta next year.
