They approached each other, awkwardly at first, then shared a quick embrace and quiet words.
Woods believes he finally is ready to move on after a self-destructive year that cost him his marriage, his mystique, millions in endorsements and, lastly, his No. 1 ranking.
What remains are relationships to repair, along with his golf game.
Still to come is Thanksgiving.
“I think it’s going to be great,” Woods said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m going to be with my family. My mom is going to be there. We’re going to have a great Thanksgiving. We’ve turned the corner, turned the page, and it’s time to move forward.”
He was not playing dumb.
Woods realizes the public might forever connect him and Thanksgiving with perhaps one of the most shocking downfalls in sports.
It started with the National Enquirer story of an affair with a nightclub hostess. Then came the still mysterious, middle-of-the-night accident Nov. 27 when he drove his SUV over a fire hydrant and crashed into a tree beyond his driveway. His wife tended to him in the street, the back windows of the Cadillac Escalade bashed out with a golf club.
On the 911 call was the chilling voice of his mother as she cried out, “What happened?”
One year later, that remains a relevant question.
No one really knew much about Woods except that he dominated golf like no one had before. Within weeks, everyone knew too much.
He was caught in a stunning web of infidelity, each indiscretion played out in public through voicemails, celebrity magazines, TV talk shows and even “sexting” on a porn star’s website. He became a regular in the National Enquirer. He was on front pages everywhere, long after the major championship season was over.
Woods had spent 14 years carefully cultivating an impeccable image that brought him worldwide fame. Just like that, he went from being universally revered to roundly ridiculed.
“That’s fine, totally fine,” Woods said in Australia, leaning forward on a leather sofa, elbows resting on his knees. “I made my share of mistakes. People can look at that as what not to do, and if they choose to make fun of it, that’s fine. I can’t control that. All I know is that I can only control myself.
“And at that point in my life,” he said, “I wasn’t even able to do that.”
At a gala dinner in the Crowns Tower, the same hotel where the nightclub hostess was spotted a year earlier, Woods shared the stage with Shane Warne, known as the Tiger Woods of Australian cricket, on and off the pitch.
Warne built his legend as a wicked leg spinner — and a prolific womanizer.
“I think we’ve got a little bit in common,” Warne said with a smile, pausing for effect. “I love golf, too.”
Woods flashed an easy smile, breaking the brief tension in the room, and the audience quickly burst into laughter. It was the first time Woods has laughed publicly about such an embarrassing episode in his life, perhaps a sign that he had indeed turned the corner.
On the golf course? Not quite.
With two eagles on the last four holes of the Australian Masters, he at least managed fourth place, as good as he did all year. For the first time in his career, Woods didn’t win a single trophy. Instead, he shot the highest 36-hole score of his career when he missed the cut at Quail Hollow, and the highest 72-hole score of his career when he nearly finished last at Firestone.
In so many ways, it was a year no one could have predicted.
“Frenetic would be a word that comes to mind,” said Mark Steinberg, his agent at IMG.
Steinberg was in California when he received word that Woods had been in an accident. He was aware of the National Enquirer story that had been released the day before Thanksgiving, and he was about to learn of an Us Weekly magazine story involving a cocktail waitress, and a voicemail from Woods suggesting his wife was onto them.
For three months, that voicemail was the only time the public heard Woods speak.
As his world was imploding, he only spoke through statements released on his website — first a “situation” that was embarrassing, then “transgressions” he regretted with “all my heart.” No one saw him. No one even knew where he was.
Every expert in public relations and crisis management had a field day, blasting his management team for keeping him in hiding as rumors and innuendo filled the void. A year later, Steinberg isn’t convinced it was mishandled.
“First of all, I don’t think anyone has ever experienced this. There certainly was not a road map how to deal with this,” he said. “We consulted with some people who deal with crisis management, and that was the consensus we got.”
Players were used to talking about Woods, about his great play and whether anyone could beat him.
This was personal. It was messy.
Woods said he was still mending relationships, but he won’t say how or with whom.
More obvious was how players looked at him as a competitor. When he returned at the Masters, and played in the second-to-last group, his name on the leaderboard didn’t seem so intimidating. Woods tied for fourth.
He never finished higher the rest of the year.
Not only did Woods fail to win for the first time in his 15 years on the PGA Tour, he wasn’t even close. In nine of the 13 tournaments he finished, Woods was at least 10 shots behind going into the final round. He finished a career-low 68th on the money list. His biggest check was $330,000; a year earlier, he had averaged $618,127 per tournament.
Was he trying? Yes. Consumed with it? Not so much.
He parted with swing coach Hank Haney in May, tried to go it alone through a miserable summer, then hooked up with Sean Foley at the PGA Championship in August.
“My mind was not on that initially,” said Woods, who always said he only enters a tournament to win. “I had a lot of things I had to deal with in order to get myself in the winner’s circle. This summer was very difficult.”
Asked how often that was the case this summer, Woods said, “Every day. It was difficult.”
The divorce became final on Aug. 23. In his first round as a single man, Woods shot 65 at The Barclays to share the lead. It was the only time all year his name was atop the leaderboard after any round.
So here he is, one year later.
He lost three major endorsements in Accenture, AT&T and Gatorade that cost him more than $100 million. His golf bag, once the most coveted billboard of all, has carried only his name. Steinberg said they are starting to test the market, and more business deals are expected.
What’s his appeal?
“Arguably the greatest golfer that’s ever played,” Steinberg said. “Exposure. Rehabilitation. Changed man. Redemption.”
Woods wasn’t one to reflect on his great years, whether it was nine wins and three straight majors in 2000, or the stretch of 12 tournaments in 2007-08 when he won eight times, never finishing worse than fifth and ending the streak by winning the US Open on a broken leg.
This is different.
“You have to look at the past in order to learn from it and move on,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of reflecting over the past year. And certainly, I’ve turned the corner and a.m. looking more toward the future in a lot of ways. I’m in a better place than I ever was. That’s the beauty of it. That’s what is fun and exciting about the future.
“I’m in a much more peaceful place than I’ve been in a very long time.”
