02/24/2021 - The Best Of Outkick The Coverage

Clay Travis reacts to Tiger Woods having surgery after his serious car crash. Clay shares his first thoughts when the news broke, and how golf is not the first concern. Chantel McCabe, formerly of the Golf Channel joins Clay to talk everything Tiger. They discuss Woods' family, his media coverage all these years, the nostalgia factor, and more. Clay dives back into the life of Tiger Woods and explains why so many of us have a connection with Tiger, like no other athlete. Plus, Petros of AM 570 LA Sports is in the house with some amazing details about the road that Tiger crashed on, just 1.5 miles from The Old P's house.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of out Kick the
Coverage podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
morning from six to nine am Eastern three to six
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
for OutKick the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every morning on the I Heart
Radio app by searching f s R. This is the
best of OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Fox

(00:22):
Sports Radio. The big story that is out there and
unfortunate for many of you, I'm sure because I bet
you had the same thoughts echoing in your mind as
I did. And that is in particular Tiger Woods with
his car crash incident in uh southern l A that

(00:46):
made so many people I think out there think about
what was going on and happened with Kobe Bryant and
the helicopter crash a little over a year ago also
in southern California. Everybody already knows the story. But in
the event that you have been somewhere out there and
haven't been paying attention and you've just turned on the radio,
Tiger Woods appears that he is going to be eventually

(01:09):
fine after a rollover incident that required the jaws of
life to be used to pull him out of his vehicle,
and I will read for you, uh, the statement that
was put out. There was then a press conference later
in the afternoon on Tuesday as everybody kind of walked
through everything that had to be said about the about

(01:33):
the incident with Tiger Woods. And I think a lot
of times using primary sources is probably the best opportunity
because there are so many different early reports and fortunately
most of these early reports were not like the Kobe
Bryant situation where there ended up being a lot of
falsehoods out there. But this was the statement that the

(01:54):
l A County Sheriff's put out on Tuesday afternoon. UH.
They said, on February twenty three and approximately seven twelve am, UH,
the l A Sheriff's Department responded to a single vehicle
rollover traffic collision on the border of Rolling Hills Estates
and Rancho's Palace Verdes. The vehicle was traveling northbound on

(02:16):
Hawthorne Boulevard at black Horse Road when it crashed. The
vehicle sustained major damage. The driver and sole occupant was
identified as Pga Golfer Eldrick Tiger Woods, Mr. Woods was
extricated from the wreck with the jaws of life by
Los Angeles County firefighters and paramedics, then transported to a
local hospital by ambulance for his injuries. The traffic investigation

(02:38):
is being conducted by investigators from the l A Sheriff's Department.
So that is the report that was officially out there.
Additional reports about the injuries that he sustained have have
suggested that that is mostly lower body leg injuries. Tiger Woods,
of course, has had so many different surgeries over the

(02:58):
years for a verae idea of problems, most recently for
his back, which has made it so difficult for him
to be able to play golf at a high level.
He's now forty five years old, and I know a
little bit about what exactly was going on on this morning,
and some of this information has been published out there.
Tiger Woods was filming on Monday a sort of a

(03:23):
new show concept on a golf course in Los Angeles.
He was filming alongside of guys like Dwyane Wade and
David Spade. They were doing a a show that was
basically described to me as kind of the equivalent of
comedians and cars, except it's golf course, golf course with

(03:44):
Tiger Woods, and so you can see why if you're
a golfer, the best possible opportunity you could be given
is to be able to go golf with Tiger Woods.
And so they had lined up a lot of different
celebrities to spend the day hanging out with Tiger Woods
and see exactly what was going to to be happening.

(04:07):
So there are um, you know, some interesting and uh
and and and sort of fascinating sets about that. But
David Spade and Dwyane Wade both put out the pictures
of them playing alongside of Tiger Woods on Monday. And
then I was told that Drew Brees showed up on

(04:27):
Tuesday morning as the earliest guest who was going to
be playing against Tiger Woods. And they were set there
to film on that golf course and uh, celebrities play
with Tiger Woods. And so Drew Brees is there and
they're trying to figure out what's going on, and there
isn't anybody that is that that's arriving right, Tiger Woods

(04:50):
is not arriving at the golf course. So Drew Brees
is standing around waiting to see what exactly is going
on there, UH, And there later was scheduled to be
Justin Herbert coming in the afternoon among others, and Tiger
Woods did not show up that morning, and everybody on
the film crew was waiting at the golf course uncertain.
He wasn't answering his cell phone. Nobody knew exactly what

(05:14):
was going on with Tiger Woods. After he had spent
all day Monday filming with those guests, among others, Dwyane
Wade and David Spade. So then the news breaks about
the traffic accident and the fact that Tiger Woods is
going to have to have surgery and that he had
to be rescued with the jaws of life, and everybody

(05:35):
at the golf courses obviously incredibly uh incredibly overwhelmed with
with that incident and UH and wishing Tiger Woods the best.
But that was what he was traveling to on that
Tuesday morning to be there to play golf alongside of
Drew Brees and later in the day Justin Herbert, and
again on Monday he had played, among others, with Dwayne

(05:58):
Wade and David Spade, and there was an entire camera
crew there to film the interaction between the two of
them and the idea, the conceit of it is. Again,
it's kind of like comedians and cars, uh, that Jerry
Seinfeld special, but instead it's Tiger Woods playing golf. So
that is the background as to where Tiger Woods was headed. Now,
a lot of you out there probably start to experience

(06:21):
stories like these and it makes you just. For me,
the way that I respond to stories like these now
that I'm a dad is anytime parents of young children
are involved in a accident like this, my first thought
is about the kids. I mean, it really is, because
we just saw very recently that iconic It feels like

(06:47):
already video of Tiger Woods following his son Charlie around,
and also of Charlie Woods is Swing being a perfect
mirror image in many ways of Tiger Woods. And whether
you're a dad or a mom out there, I feel
like many of you have the same experience that I

(07:09):
did when I became a dad a long time ago.
Now it feels like I feel like I've been a
dad forever. But when I was twenty eight years old
and I had my first son was born, the first
thing you think as a dad or a mom is
I want to be there for this child until they're

(07:29):
an adult. I I really don't worry about anything in
my life. I'm not a warrior in general, but I
do worry about being there for my kids and making
sure that I can get them to adulthood. And I
think that's almost the first reaction that every single parent has,

(07:52):
and you might have heard your own parents talk about it,
But until you are a dad or a mom yourself,
or until you have responsibility for young children, you don't
really know what that feeling is. Two so desperately just
want to get them into adulthood, get them through high school,

(08:12):
get them through college, give him an opportunity to be
able to get out into the world, and for you
to raise them as best you can. It's such a
tremendous feeling of responsibility. And one of the first things
I thought was about Kobe Bryant because again of the
location in Los Angeles and the wreckage uh and and

(08:33):
it just brought back what happened with Kobe a year ago.
But almost immediately after the Kobe thought was thinking about
Tiger Woods as two young children, and we experienced Tiger
Woods as this luminescent transcendent athlete, one of the best
golfers in the history of the world, if not the best,

(08:55):
depending on who exactly is arguing on any given day.
But for his two kids, he's just He's just dad,
and especially for those being young kids. We may want
to see Tiger Woods have another moment like he did
at East Late Country Club down in Atlanta, or like
he did as he walked up to the green in Augusta,

(09:17):
being able to triumph against all odds one last time
to put on that green jacket. But really, I guarantee you,
if we had Tiger Woods on right now, what he's
thinking about, I guarantee you when he's laying there in
that car, is not about anything having to do with golf.
He's thinking about his kids and how he wants to

(09:38):
be there for them, because that's what dads and moms do,
and that's what dads and moms think. And so I
even remember Tiger Woods and we're gonna talk with Petros
Papadakis were scheduled to in the final hour of the show.
I even remember Tiger Woods talking about how when he
was in such excruciating pain in his back, he wasn't

(10:00):
necessarily thinking about being able to play golf. He was
thinking about being able to be a dad. And you
hear a lot of athletes talk about that, particularly ones
who put their bodies on the line football for instance,
and how they are concerned about being able to chase
around their kids when they get older, to see whether
or not they're going to have that same ability, uh

(10:23):
and and and that sort of flexibility in the body
to be able to do that. And it is such
a powerful thought for any parent out there, and such
a terrifying thought that you might not be there for them.
So I'm glad that it appears Tiger Woods is going
to be okay in terms of being able to recover.

(10:46):
I think certainly there will be plenty of time into
the future to talk about the legacy of Tiger Woods
as a golfer and whether he's able to extend that
legacy or whether these injuries become so significant that a
comeback from them him is going to be incredibly difficult
or not. That is a conversation that I'm sure will
be discussed in the weeks and months and even some

(11:08):
days potentially ahead. But in the meantime, I'm just glad
that he was able to survive that what looks like
an awful rollover incident in the southern part of the
Los Angeles metropolitan area. And I hope that that that
he is going to be able to recover. And I
thank all of the time, as we always should, and
we always do on this show, at least all the

(11:29):
first responders who got there, and we're able to get
Tiger Woods out of that house, sorry, out of that car,
and get him moved to a hospital so he can
begin the process of recovery from all of the injuries
that he suffered. This is out kicked the coverage with
Clay Travis. We bring in now Chantel McCabe, who was

(11:52):
at the Golf Channel for a long time and obviously
Tiger Woods synonymous in many ways with the Golf Channel
because anytime he was in a tournament for years and years,
the ratings would skyrocket, and so everybody competed to see
whether or not they would make the Tiger circuit or not. Chantel,
thanks for getting up early with us. What do you

(12:12):
think as you're breaking down the Tiger Wood story when
you heard about the traffic accident and everything else, what
were the first thoughts that you had, Well, you hit
the nail on the head Clay because it is such
a game changer having him as part of the sports
still at forty five and not just playing, but competing
in the way that he's mentored a lot of these
younger players and me. And you think about back to

(12:33):
the beginning of his career in in the Hello world
and winning the Masters um by a significant margin and
really making a splash on the scene that has not
gone away for decades now. And so I'm sure just
like everyone else watching it, I mean, it eerily reminded
me of Kobe Bryant from last year. You were watching

(12:53):
it unfolds on the news, and you're starting to like
reality is creeping into your own mind. You're getting chills,
like I mean, it's almost like your body is paralyzed,
like this this isn't this isn't real, This isn't happening.
This is a kind of a dream. But I really
feel for not just all of the fans and the
people who knew him, but you think about his family
because imagine going through this watching your father, uh, your son,

(13:18):
h for Erica, your boyfriend, even for his agent, Mark Steinberg,
someone who's been by his side for years and years
and years. I mean we're all absorbing this from Afar
and people who knew him passing or interviewing, or just
knew him as a fan. But to watch this unfold
the national TV. You're trying to obviously get through the
grief of what could play out, all the scenarios, trying

(13:40):
to get clarity and answers. But then I have to
deal with this publicly. I mean, you can't turn it off.
So obviously there's accents like this every day, but to
have to go through that um with his two children
and his girlfriend and his mom and all of the
people that are really close to his circle, I mean, this,
this really really has to sting. We're talking. So one
of the things is that I think is so fascinating

(14:01):
about Tiger Woods is I can't think of any other
sports figure that has ever been covered the way that
Tiger Woods was and to some extent still is. And
what I mean by that is, there are lots of
really good athletes who aren't necessarily great husbands or who
don't have fantastic marriages. In fact, you might even argue

(14:23):
that that might be common, right, like more common than not.
Yet most of those stories never really go public. We
never really get into the inner workings of a relationship.
I can't even think. And I'm curious if you can
of a athlete who has been covered like Tiger Woods has.
And and this may be a crazy analogy, but Britney Spears.

(14:46):
You know, they've recently had a documentary about her. I
know that Tiger Woods documentary is out. But Tiger got
Tiger got covered. They're kind of of the same generation, right,
Tiger got covered like he was an entertainment sele berty
when his life blew up in a way that athletes
usually don't. Do you buy into that as a as

(15:07):
a thesis that there really isn't a comparable athlete to
Tiger in terms of the way the media covered him
and his private life. I'm not talking about Look, Lebron
gets covered to the inth degree, Peyton, Manning, Tom Brady,
all of them. But I don't. But usually that's focused
on their on the court or on the field excellence,
and that's normal when you are a superstar athlete. I'm

(15:30):
not sure the private life of an athlete has ever
been plumbed the same way it was to Tiger, to
the extent that I believe his yacht is called privacy
like that was That's that's what he wanted, maybe more
than anything else, particularly as a guy who was thrust
into the media spotlight at such a young age. Yeah,
I did not expect you to come out with a
parallel of Tiger Woods and Britney Spears. But it is

(15:52):
kind of the eerie that both of those documentaries have
come to light as I've watched parts of both of them,
and I'm sure some of my audience has. And you know,
when I saw in the Tiger Woods accident, I thought
to myself, you know, there are some eerily, some eerie similarities,
and that they're not that far off in age, right.
I think Britney Spears thirty eight or so, Tiger Woods
forty five. I'm kind of directly in between them at

(16:14):
forty one, but I feel like I'm of both of
their generations, and the way that they were covered is
now we're kind of retrospectively analyzing it and saying, hey,
was that fair or not? Yeah, no, bingo, because I
have a thing with people in media and the fact
that of course we're going to cover what's hot and
what's popular when people put themselves out there and when

(16:34):
you're making music or you're the best in whatever fields
that may be, especially in entertainment and sports, as we
all know is quite frankly entertainment. Um, you're going to
be scrutinized. I don't think that there is any degree
that comes close to the way that Tiger Wood a scrutinized.
And hey, before I covered sports to me and I was,
you know, still in middle school in the high school

(16:55):
when stuff came out with Tiger Woods that was very
damaging to his reputation shin and I remember thinking back
then as someone who hasn't really lived through much of life,
Oh my god, that's so awful. How could that happen?
And then you kind of like grow up with these
people and then you realize life happens and they're not glamorous,
and bad things happen. And I really do think that

(17:16):
fame is poison because you're always chasing these things and
you'll never get satisfaction or fulfillment from them. So I
don't think this is just something that's exclusive to Britney
Spirits or Tiger Woods. I think this is something that
especially in the social media age there, it's gonna only
become more common and uh, life and fame and money.
These all tempt you and you go down rabbit holes

(17:37):
and you look for fulfillment where it's not. And um,
when it comes to Tigerwoods, like I said, I was
so disappointed hearing that, and you know, back in the
day and then he really has turned so many people
around what they're thinking, myself included, because uh, and this
is not biased, I'd be the first person to call
someone out for their BS, but I am amazed by

(17:58):
how genuine a lot of these younger players um really
get into talking about him and what he has done
for their careers. Of course he's still competing against them
side by side, but you know, Justin Thomas is someone
um former number one player himself who has a great
career still ahead of him. But he has relied and
leaned on Tiger as a mentor so much. And that's

(18:19):
not something he saw in the early days. And don't
get me wrong, I love that killer instinct, that guy
who was going to steer you down and not talk
to you the entire Sunday of the final round. But
what he has turned into has become almost really down
to earth in a way. Um, he's more approachable and
I know the media left covering him because he's a
lot easier to deal with. He still doesn't tell you

(18:40):
much when you interview him. He just was on with
Jim Mance on Sunday asking about about his most recent injury.
I mean, this poor guy, um has been through everything
in your body can possibly take, and uh continues to
be there. I mean, just in twenty nineteen is the
President's cut playing captain. So he's literally in the trenches
with these guys and they not only looked up to

(19:01):
him now they have a really special opportunity to play
by by him and pick his brain. And I think
that is really really special, how he's really become a
big brother to a lot of the player and the
top players in the world now while he's still competes.
But uh, it is such a fascinating case study like
what our media, what social media, and us as reporters,

(19:23):
what we dive into. I don't always think it's fair.
As I've gotten older, I have to take a step
back and say, Okay, it's a really murky line to
cross between covering these people who do put themselves out
there and pointing back to the p NT Championship he
played with his son Charlie, and we're kind of like
getting a little weird about how awkward it is that

(19:44):
grown men are like freaking out over Charley Wood Swing.
But to be fair, you know, he's agreeing to play
in this and he's you know, doing the fifth pump
and you know, holding his pose and it's it's captivating,
and he's putting himself in front of cameras. So is
such a murky water to try to weed out what's
morally appropriate and what's not. You know, it is really

(20:08):
fascinating because I think about watching some of the Tiger
Woods documentary. If Tiger Woods is marriage with Ellen blows up,
and it doesn't blow up in a rex car Police
being called situation, right, it just blows up like most
marriages blow up. Right. Both sides don't decide they don't

(20:29):
want to be together anymore. Most of it never really
goes public, which is what happens with most most not all,
but most celebrity divorces. I don't know that Tiger Woods
ever gets covered to the extent that he did, right.
I mean, it was that incident where he wrecked his
car and h and all the reports about what might

(20:51):
have set off that that domestic dispute that sort of
turned Tiger woods Is private life into a into a
fertile news story, and again in a way I I
don't know the like, I think this is such an
interesting thing to think about, you know, fifteen twenty years
later or whatever it's been since that initial incident happened.

(21:13):
I'm not sure when you look back on a chantelle
whether we would have ever covered it, and whether Tiger
woods Is worst things about his private life would have
ever come out if that initial car accident doesn't happen. Agree.
I think that obviously is a really important piece of

(21:34):
the story and what made people so intrigued in the
first place. But you and I both know there's a
lot of crap that gets covered up between especially things
that happened in the households. No doubt most of it
never gets out. That's kind of my thing, especially with athletes, right. Yeah,
I think that that was a pivotal part of how
this storyline all unfolded, which is what makes me think that, Wow,

(21:55):
can you imagine any of your dark secrets being completely
unloaded to the public. I mean, you are we already
as people, just regular humans deal with things, and nobody
has any idea about them. But then you add the
layer of this publicity, and now you can never run
from it. I mean, you can never fully get over
it because there's always going to be people giving you

(22:16):
a heart. I mean, even you look through social media
today and some of the really thoughtful messages just asking
for you know, him to be on the men so
he can play with his kids in the future, which
is something that you know, after the fourth back surgery,
when people were so concerned are you gonna be able
to win another green jacket? Will forget about that? This
guy just wants to be able to play in the
backyard with his freaking kids. So um, even though I

(22:36):
think that's a huge portion of it, it's gonna be
so difficult. And I'm not sympathizing with this people because
I know the story that I know this whole song
and dance. Oh well, they make the money, they choose
to do this, but we all deal with a bunch
of crap in our lives that some people have no
idea and then to try to recover from that, what
I mean, it's an uphill battle for the rest of
your life. So uh, I just think back to I mean,

(22:59):
a lot of people are going to point to his
most recent green jacket in two thousand nineteen, But the
Tour Championship in two thousand eighteen. Wow, I mean, what
a flood of emotion. I can remember. It was actually
on my birthday. We were in a hotel room watching
I had just finished covering in Corncerry Tour Championship, and that,
to me is my favorite because it's all these young stories,
not these hot sexy names. But these guys were literally
before they even signed their court scorecard, we're pulling up

(23:21):
the final round of the two thousand eighteen Tour Championship
on their phone. Well you'll remember at East Lake, a
flood of people came down the eighteen fairway, And it's
just amazing to think about those things, when someone can
be so low, so low in the valleys of the
public scrutiny piled onto you, and then get up to
that point again. I mean, I look at that and

(23:43):
I just don't know what what compares to it. And
just for context, by the way, because you know, I
talked to some of my friends and they're like, oh,
Tiger wood Yadida, and they always point back to his discretions.
But I mean this guy. We all know people in
sports eight two wins, but how does that compare? Well, Okay,
Jack Nicolas three PG tour wins, So we're going from

(24:03):
eight two to seventy three. And of course all he's
trying to do is chase Jack when it comes to majors.
But okay, so let's go further down the list of
most PG Tour wins. Just to put this into perspective,
tiger Wood D two. The next most of people who
are still currently playing and have any chance of catching him,
it's Phil Frekin Michelson, who's over fifty with PG tour wins.

(24:25):
So that right there said illustrate everything you need to
know about him, his career, his perseverance, and everything that
he's battled through personally and with his health as well,
which is quite frankly a miracle walking. Right now, we're
talking to Chantel McKay formerly the Golf Channel breaking down
tiger Woods. What is so amazing to me about golf?

(24:47):
And I'm curious if you buy in with this idea,
is people connect? Because you mentioned tiger Woods winning in
nineties seven and we're going all the way into one now.
You mentioned east Lake and what he did and then
obviously the Masters win. And we're talking about nearly a
quarter century where we have seen tiger Woods evolved in
a way that no other sport really. I know Tom

(25:08):
Brady doesn't seem to have any sort of age with him,
but there's not really another sport where you can nearly
spend twenty five years watching a quarter of a century
watching the same athlete. And so much to me about
tiger Woods in general now is about the nostalgia factor
of remembering watching Tiger Woods, and I think that's why

(25:28):
people want to root for him so much, because it
takes them back to a moment in their lives when
they were rooting with him before that. Yeah, it's definitely
transcended across a couple of generations, which is really cool
that you hear so many stories like I was mentioning
with Calm more Kala and Justin Thomas and a lot
of these other younger players who he's really taken under

(25:50):
their wing, um, but they can share the same memories
with their grandfather because at the beginning of Tiger's career
it was just as exciting as it is all in one.
But uh, this is some real inside golf stuff and
to me, the most incredible thing he has done is
made a hundred and forty two consecutive cuts. I mean,

(26:12):
that is unfathomable. If you're a golf fan, you probably
already know that. But again, just for the perspective of
people outside of the little golf bubble that I live in, um,
the number one player in the world right now Desin Johnson,
who's just as sexy as a name, and he's quite
frankly like still at the beginning of his greatness and dominance.
He missed the cuts wife last year. Just so, a

(26:35):
hundred and forty two times you're going to play in
a tournament and you make the cut every freaking time,
that is unbelievable. So there's no wonder that over twenty
five years people are captivated by him because he's usually
always in the mix. Of course, if you get eight
two PG Tour wins and oh, by the way, forty
one European Tour wins, so it's not like he was
mailing it in on a tour that people don't hear

(26:57):
quite as much about. I mean, this guy always brought
a game, and that is the reason why he is
so captivating to your grandpa, your father and yourself. This
is absolutely amazing. I appreciate the time. It's an incredible story.
Uh and thanks for coming and hanging out with the Shantel.
How can people follow you? By the way, what's your
Twitter handle? Yeah? I think my Twitter handle now is

(27:18):
just Chantel McCabe, which is B H A and T
E l um for people who might have difficulty selling it.
But more than anything, I just hope that Tiger is
not just healthy. I really do not see him playing.
We always do this song and dance every single year
with his next knee and of course back injuries. But
I hope, pray to God that he's just able to
be able to get back on his feet literally and

(27:40):
live his life as normal of a person as possible.
Outstanding stuff. We'll talk to you again soon that Chantel McCabe.
Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage
with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three
am Pacific. So we've obviously been talking a lot about
Tiger Woods, we've talked a little bit about the NFL.
Encourage you, by the way to go download the podcast,

(28:01):
make sure you don't miss anything. And one of the
things that I spent a lot of time contemplating on
Tuesday as I scrolled through my Twitter feed and saw
so many people that I follow and so many people
that I know reacting to the Tiger Woods story, and

(28:22):
I was thinking about why Tiger Woods matters to such
an extent for so many different people, and obviously we
want Tiger to be well. I would love for him
to have another opportunity like he did at East Like
Country Club down in Atlanta, and also like he did
at Augusta when he won a green jacket kind of
out of nowhere, which I think will be a lot

(28:45):
like when Jack Nicholas, I think one in six if
I'm not mistaken doub you can look that up at
the age of forty six, when it was kind of
came out of nowhere, and it was just a sign
of what he had been papable of in the past,
and it evoked such a sense of nostalgia for so

(29:07):
many golf fans out there, And to me, golf is
unique because you can have a really long golf career
that allows us as sports fans, to experience your life
in a way that doesn't occur in really any other sport.

(29:30):
And let me explain exactly what I mean. If you
use Tiger Woods as an example, I basically am the
same age as Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods is forty five,
I'm forty one years old. We were raised in the
same sort of era. There's not a tremendous difference between
us years wise. It's funny when you're a kid with

(29:51):
you're a senior in high school and somebody else as
a freshman, You're like, oh, there's three years difference worth
so much different. And then as you age you've find
out that really you're the same generation and many of
your experiences were not that much different than somebody else's experience.
So I'm forty one, Tiger is forty five. But I

(30:13):
feel like in many ways I have grown up with
Tiger Woods. I've seen him on the course at Augusta,
winning at the age of nineteen years old, this skinny
kid that had not yet grown in any way into
his adult body. I remember watching Tiger at the US

(30:34):
Junior Amateurs. I think it's called and I'm not a
golf savant, so if I missed up mess up some
of my language, I apologize to you golf knicks out there.
But watching Tiger Woods when at that level hearing all
the discussion between Palmer and Nicholas about how many Green
jackets he was going to end up winning, all of

(30:55):
the talent, the fact that he was heralded as such
an unbelievable star at such a young age, and that
he lived up to it in many ways, and that
Tiger didn't shy away from the fact that his goal
was to win more majors than Jack Nicholas. He had

(31:19):
an objective out there, and it seemed like Tiger was
gonna beat Jack Nicholas and when going away, and then
it didn't happen. And we'll circle back to that in
a moment. But what you saw from Tiger, and what
you sometimes see engulf and typically don't see in very

(31:39):
many other sports, is you see someone go from childhood
to adulthood to middle age and you grow alongside of them.
And so Tiger Woods when he won that first Masters,
who does he hug when he comes off the eighth Green?

(32:00):
His dad, Tiger Woods For all of us who are
sports fans who were old enough to remember that, initially
came into our lives as the son of Earl Woods.
He was a kid. He was defined by his relationship,
and his mom was there as well, by the way,

(32:22):
but he was defined as their son, as the son
of Tiger and of of of his dad and his mom.
And then what happens. He gets married to Ellen Nordgren
and as he's coming off the course, he hugs her

(32:44):
and you can see that he has moved into adulthood
in some way. Now that relationship, which will get to
in a moment, blows up, doesn't work. But before that happens,
he has two kids, and we get used to seeing
then Tiger through the eyes. Over the course of his career,

(33:04):
we've seen him from son to husband to father himself.
And that's the natural evolution that I personally have gone
through and that many of you out there, I imagine
have also gone through. And just like me, you are
not the exact same person that you were when you

(33:25):
were a precocious eighteen or nineteen year old kid, and
you're probably not the same person that you were when
you got married for the first time, and you certainly
aren't the same person that you were before you suddenly
took on the mantles and responsibilities of fatherhood. And so Golf,
uniquely to me, we get to see these guys because

(33:48):
of the length of careers of the top golfers go
from boy to man the father. And I say that
because I do think there's a different between being a
boy and a man and a dad, right, Like those
are natural evolutions, because even when you're a man, before
you have kids or before you have family responsibilities, you

(34:10):
are still primarily responsible for yourself. And I've heard a
lot of people talking. I was talking to my wife
about this the other day. We had some friends over
and we were talking about Britney Spears and it's interesting
Britney Spears and Tiger Woods. Although they're totally different, right
one is a golfer, another one is an entertainer, but

(34:33):
they're that same era. And I was talking about tiger
Woods forty five, Britney Spears thirty eight years old, or
whatever the heck she is. I'm right in between both
of them at forty one years old. When you think
about the way we treated Tiger Woods, there's no other
athlete that I am aware of in my life that

(34:55):
has had his private life dissected in the way that
Tiger Woods has. In fact, I can't even think of
anyone else who is a close second in the world
of sports. Now, some of you might be thinking, Okay,
o J. Simpson, Well, I'll give you o J. But

(35:18):
O J. Was dissected because he was accused of double murder.
Whatever you might think of Tiger Woods, he just might
be guilty of being a bad husband. And so I'm
not sure that we've ever seen an athlete that was

(35:39):
cut open right to the bone in terms of the
media going all in on the way they covered him
like we've seen for Tiger Woods. In the world of sports,
there are lots of really famous athletes Peyton Manning, Michael
Jordan's I'll use a couple, Lebron James. I don't ever

(36:01):
remember the media diving into their personal lives on any
of the way to any of the degree like they
did for Tiger Woods. And some of those guys have
gotten divorced, some of them haven't. Some of them have
had off the field or off the court related issues.

(36:22):
But really what's remarkable about Tiger is there's really nobody
else in the world of sports that's ever been treated
like him in terms of losing all of his privacy.
And I don't think it's a coincidence that Tiger Woods
would build himself a massive yacht and name it privacy,

(36:45):
because this is a guy who has been on the
stage being analyzed as something more than a golfer since
he was seventeen, sixteen, eighteen, nineteen years old. And it
reminds me a little bit of the path that Britney

(37:06):
Spears has been on. And I don't know if how
many of you have watched it, but there's the Tiger
Woods documentary out there, and there's also the Britney Spears
documentary out there, and what both of them convey is
the all encompassing nature of media and the way they
covered Tiger Woods and also Britney Spears. I mean, these

(37:30):
were guys and girls who were on the cover of
the weekly magazines in a pre Internet driven celebrity culture,
in a pre social media era where before the athlete
or the celebrity could talk to their fans directly through
social media and kind of curtail this wild chase for

(37:51):
the latest scoop. Tiger Woods was covered like Britney Spears,
and if you go back and watched the trajectory of
their lives, it's interesting to think about because they are
the embodiment of a generation that our media almost destroyed. Now,

(38:14):
I'm not saying they were perfect in their choices. I'm
not saying they didn't make mistakes, But to Air is human.
All of us are imperfect. And I think one reason
why this Tiger Woods incident, this car accident, struct so
many people so interestingly, is because Tiger has been a

(38:35):
fixture in so many people's lives for so long that
we feel like we are a part of his story,
because his story is so inextricably intertwined with our own stories.
As we have aged, as we have grown, there has
been Tiger Woods in the red shirt striding across a green.

(39:00):
And we love to build up our heroes, to make
them larger than life. But what often ends up making
us love our heroes the most is the moments when
they are the most human. And I think for so
many people out there, I know I was one of them.

(39:20):
Watching Tiger Woods on the golf course with his son,
it felt like a circle of life moment where Tiger
has moved from being the son the protege of his father,
Earl Woods, and he now has become in full circle

(39:43):
the dad, and his story in many ways feels like
it's building towards a conclusion where we don't see Tiger
Woods as a golfer at all, we see him as
a dad. Everybody likes to think about the way that

(40:04):
stories end that moment, especially in athletics, where a transcendent
athlete is able to experience the utmost glory on the court,
and it happens at a young age. To end, most
stories don't end perfectly. We just saw that maybe with

(40:26):
Drew Brees. We may send up seeing it with Tom
Brady before all is said and done. But most people
aren't Michael Jordan's draining a jumper to win the NBA
Finals with the Chicago Bulls, even though he later played
with the Wizards. We forget about that. Most people aren't
Paid Manning or John Elway riding off into the sunset
with the Lombardi Lombardi Trophy on their shoulder. Most people

(40:49):
aren't Tiger Woods deciding to retire right as he walks
up and sinks a putt on the eighteenth Green in
Augusta to win a Master's in a legendary fashion that
no one ever thought was possible. Most people aren't able
to write their ending, but that doesn't mean we don't
want for the perfect ending. To be possible. How do

(41:12):
most stories end when you're a kid and they lived
happily ever after? Well, that doesn't sum up most people's lives,
because even if you do live happily ever after, they're
often are many different dark moments in everybody's life. But
I think what struck people earlier I talked about Kobe

(41:33):
It wasn't That's not how Kobe's story was supposed to end,
And that strikes a lot of people, get them in
the gut. And I think, if you're a parent, what
got you in the gut about Tiger Woods? Was the
story of Tiger Woods is life? I feel like, isn't

(41:54):
going to end with him having a golf club in
his hand. It's going to end and in some former fashion,
with him being a dad standing off of the green
watching his son compete somewhere. And maybe that is the
best possible ending for Tiger Woods of all when you

(42:17):
consider the way that he entered this life of ours
in the world of sports, which is as Earl Woods son.
And what struck so many of us right in the
solar plexus, Why so many of us reacted so emotionally
when we heard about that Tiger Woods story was because

(42:39):
in many ways, the story of Tiger Woods is life,
is the story in some small part of our own
life as sports fans as well. I hope that made
sense to some of you. I tried to sometimes put
into context what exactly I am thinking of in terms
of the experience of Tiger Woods and why so many

(43:02):
people cared so desperately about his health in that particular
moment in time. This is outkicked the coverage with Clat's Ravens.
Petros Papadakis. I actually thought as soon as I saw
the news and I was like, okay, well where did

(43:23):
this l a accident happen? And as I saw everybody moving,
you know, kind of zooming in with their maps and
everything else on television, I thought to myself, there's only
one man I know who lives in palace very days.
That's Petros Papadakis. Did your phone blow up with people
wanting to know if if you were okay, if you've
seen Tiger drive off the road? Yeah? It was. It

(43:43):
was wild because I was up really early in the
morning working and after I drove my kids to school,
I went back to sleep, as I am apt to
do as a European and a sheet and tarryman and uh.
I woke up around noon and I had like four
or text from everybody and their mom, from every fireman

(44:04):
I know in the area, every police officer I know
in the area, every dad I know, all my high
school friends. I mean that's and then I looked up
in the sky and there were helicopters over my house
and and the whole area, like twenty helicopters, which I
have never seen. And so I got my stuff on
and drove over to where the crash was because it's

(44:26):
a mile really like a mile and a half from
my house and a mile from my high school. If
you saw the aerial shots, that football field is my
high school football field Peninsula High School. Colin Calvert said
Pallas Verdes is almost a peninsula yesterday on the air,

(44:47):
and I just want to correct that and say it is.
In fact, it's called the Palis Verdes Peninsula. And the
high school that I went to that is about a
mile from where tiger crashed is called penins Sala High School.
I mean calling the big deal. So we might have
to change it to almost peninsula. Uh, it's a very

(45:09):
interesting thing, Clay for us locals because that is a
very treacherous area to drive, as people have started to
talk about. They started to kind of later in the
evening yesterday, and people that know the area just know
that that's the very If you've ever been to Los Angeles,
south of the city, there's a hill and that hill

(45:30):
is called the Palas Verdes Peninsula. There's actually no town
on it called Palas Verdes. There's Palas Verdes Estates, there's
Rolling Hills Estates. There is the private city Rolling Hills
where Steve Sarkeesian and Pete Carroll used to live. And
there is uh Rancho Palas Verdes, which is the town

(45:52):
I grew up in. I live now in Palas Verdes Estates.
Tiger crashed on the border between Rancho Palavertes and Rolling
Hills Estates, which is why you hear it characterized as
one or the other over and over because he crashed
right on the border and it's a it's a hill.

(46:13):
At the very top of the hill is where the
high school is, and Tiger was going down the hill
and there's an emergency gravel lane over to the right.
Because cars lose control all the time, what causes that.
I'm not an expert on driving by any stretch of
the imagination, But what causes cars to lose control just

(46:34):
the steepness of the hill is it turns like what
what causes issues there? I think what happens is you
gather speed at a high rate and then there's a
turn and a stoplight, and if you're not from the area,
it catches people off guard, especially if you look down
at your phone or or something like that. And he
was late. What would happen all the time with us

(46:56):
in the high in our high school, especially in my
high school was seven the present Asian and a lot
of kids had those crazy hondas with the momo would
and the exhaust and all that. And you know, we
wouldn't have that problem in the morning because everybody's going
up the hills toward high school, toward the high school
on top of the hill early in the morning. But

(47:17):
at lunchtime and after school, you would have crashes all
the time from people driving back down the hill and crashed,
fatal crashes right there in that area. There's a there's
a reason there's an emergency fire lane over to the right.
I've gotten texts all the last couple of days from
people saying, my my family friend died there in on

(47:41):
that road. So I don't know what was in Tiger system.
Obviously he has a history of that kind of stuff,
But I wouldn't be surprised if he just crashed because
he did not know the area. He was late, and
he was going too fast in a very unfortunate spot.
So for people out there, like I've been around this area,

(48:01):
I think the Tarranea resort, would that be in close
proximity to all of this as well? Okay, well that's
where he was staying. That's what I heard. Okay, So
that's on the back side of the hill. Basically the
only thing you stare at when you look out from
the Tarrannea is the ocean and the Catalina Island the
northern part. So Tarrania is where they used to for

(48:25):
your older listeners, they used to shoot the Lloyd Bridges
show Sea Hunt there and then it was a marine land,
like a Sea World type of place when I was
a kid, and now it's a luxury hotel. Tiger was
staying there. He took a terrible route. He was headed
to Rolling Hills Country Club and he took a route
going over the top of the hill, which he didn't

(48:46):
have to. Basically, all he had to do was go
around the south side of the hill through San Pedro.
But they're probably would freak out if they saw Tiger
Woods driving down Western Avenue in San Pietro. So he
went over the top of the hill. Whatever reason he
was on there, I think I understand he was late
for a TV shoot and he was staying at the
tarran and got out of there late. So uh, it's

(49:09):
it's about a fifteen minute drive from where he crashed
for Tarran. But tarran A is not close to anything,
as you know, because it's right it's in the middle
of the biggest land movement area in the world, so
there's not a lot of houses around there, and there
would be because it's some of the most beautiful property
in the world. Oh, I mean the resort. If people

(49:29):
are looking for things on their bucket list, tarran A
a resort is one of the most extraordinary resorts in
the country. I mean, I don't think that's hyper totally untrue.
Like people were saying, like, do you think tire was drunk,
And I was like, it's impossible to get drunk at
Tarrana because the service is so bad to get enough liquor.

(49:50):
And this is the complaint about Marine Land. It's really
a complaint about this area, which is a very isolated,
very strange, very beautiful. But I think that you were
as close to one of the biggest cities in the
world if you were in this area, right, That's a
good way to describe it, which is one reason it's
sort of popular, because people want an escape from the

(50:13):
big city life. A couple of people pointed out a
few things that might make that point for you. One,
it is peacock mating season, and he might have swerved
away from one of those, although not likely. On Hawthorne,
it's coyote mating season. Uh. And that's that's also likely
that he might have swerved away, uh from one of

(50:33):
those and uh. Some people asked an appropriate question. It's
it's also maybe likely that his car could have rolled
right into somebody on a horse in that area. So yes,
it is. Uh. It's a very kind of strange, tucked
away area, and you know, there's no self service. Everything's
kind of backwards up here in a weird way. And

(50:56):
the fact that it's now got every newsman internationally in
the world parked on it, and every helicopter above my
house is a little surreal. We're talking to Petro with
Papa das Am Fox seventy l A Sports. You can
hear him for many people out there, given the fact
that it was just a little bit over a year
ago that Kobe Bryant's helicopter crashed. Even though Tiger Woods

(51:18):
is going to be okay, this was a moment to
evoke those feelings that happened over a year ago. Is
that the primary reaction that you heard among southern California
sports fans. Did you hear a lot of those connections
being made? We talked about it because it feels, you know,
it felt that way. I mean, obviously that was north
of here in the Ventura County area, Calabasas area, which

(51:43):
is a hilly, beautiful area, and those are the hills
kind of above Malibu, which is the exact opposite side, yes,
of the Santa Monica Bay from here. So uh, I mean,
it all seems like a small area if you're really
far away, but it kind of takes a while to
get there. But I remember very sad the day after

(52:04):
Kobe's accident, we had to go and do Justin Turner's
golf tournament which was set in Stone and there was
no going back, and it was all promotional and we
had to go and interview Clayton Kershawn, Justin Turner and
Albert Pools and all these guys at Sherwood Country Club,
which is very close to the crash site. So and

(52:26):
I drove right by the next day just because it
was on the way, Like, I didn't go out of
my way. But it was the same scene. You know,
twenty helicopters in the air, every newsman in the world
parked in an affluent community that is kind of a
hilly area, although where Kobe crashes a little bit more remote,

(52:48):
but yeah, it felt very similar. But you know, there
you're talking about multiple people tragically dying, and Tiger is
going to have a long road back to being comfortable again,
I think it. But he's certainly going to live. We're
talking to Petro's pas a M five seventy l A Sports.
You had Tiger Woods on your radio show a few
years ago at his to come to Jesus with with

(53:12):
Petros and money. Yeah, well it was interesting because Tiger
is a southern California kid. I think by and large
for most of his life. And what's interesting about that
conversation that you had with him was there was a
certain pivot towards being a dad as opposed to being
one of the best golfers in the world. And I
feel like we saw that in December with him being

(53:35):
out on the course with his son, and I think,
you've got two young kids. I've got three relatively young kids.
For many of us, I think that transition from being
you know, sort of the focal point to now being
responsible for other people is a major life path. It
feels like in many ways that was a tremendous moment

(53:57):
for Tiger as well. And so I think a lot
of people thought about him as a dad almost as
much or more than they did of him as a
golfer because the last time we saw him on a
golf course with his son. Yeah, I grow it up
where I grew up and playing at usc you know,
I got around a lot of people who grew up
to be billionaires or Hall of famers, And it's odd,

(54:18):
you know, I knew Tiger Woods in college a little
bit because our kicker, his cousin Byron Bell, was the
guy the bagman for Tiger Woods, a guy that went
down with all of his women and all that stuff.
And he was a caddie briefly after Fluff quit. If
you remember Iron Bell, well, our kicker was David Bell

(54:38):
and he was Tiger Wood's best friend. Byron was his cousin.
So we were around him and he wasn't likable. You know,
he was a big nerd and kind of a creep
when I knew him when I was a kid. So
all those years later, after all of his struggles and
all the stupid sports talk takes in the world about him,
when I forced to answer questions about golf. Uh, we

(55:01):
interviewed him for like a half hour, and it was
talk about surreal because he burned a hole through me.
I mean he looked dead into my eyes and Matt's
eyes and answered the questions honestly and really was candid.
And people still talk about that interview because it was
before he won the Masters, and we joke around and say,

(55:22):
you know, we saved him. You know, he changed after
he talked to us, but he was very candid about
his life. And then the weirdest part about the interview
was that he didn't leave. You know, there's like twelve
handlers there half with him, half with the Genesis, and
he didn't leave. He wanted to talk to me about

(55:43):
USC and uh, maybe some illicit things at USC over
the years when I was younger, and we had an
in depth conversation and he talked to my radio partner
about golf courses in the Orange County area where he
lives and where Tiger grew up North Orange County. And
it was weird, man, he wouldn't leave, you know, It's

(56:03):
like he wanted to connect with us for some weird reason.
And that's the last time I saw him. But we
always talked about that that interview, and I changed like
that moment, obviously, I changed the way I felt about him,
just because he was so giving and so gracious and
so forthcoming with everything. So yeah, that happened, and it

(56:26):
was it was an odd moment, and I I thought
about him and his kids, and his and his wife
ex wife and his girlfriend and all that, um, you know,
before I thought about, well, is he gonna be able
to beat Jack Nicholas's record or you know, I felt
I felt horrible just because we had you know, obviously
don't want to see anybody hurt like that or anyway.

(56:48):
But we had that really meaningful it feel felt like
interaction that that changed the way we approached him for sure.
Did we as a good I don't mean you and
me specifically, but we as media in general. One of
the things that I think is interesting about Tiger Woods
is I was kind of watching some of the documentary
that's up on HBO, and there's a documentary up about

(57:09):
Britney Spears too, and they're really kind of of the
same era, even though I think they're separated by seven
or eight years of age. And what you saw in
those documentaries was sort of a voracious hunger to cover
every single aspect of their lives such that there was
indeed no privacy at all associated with them. Can you

(57:30):
remember anybody ever being covered, not to his athletic exploits,
but to the degree his private life was covered ever
in the history of sports, Because I can't. And uh
and and it's just interesting to think about Tiger Woods
not only as being a transcendent golfer, but as also
being this luminescent celebrity star that was treated I think

(57:52):
quite a bit differently than anybody else in the world
of sports. Well, I mean to get that deep. I mean,
I think we always and the prisoners of the moment
with this is the most covered person in the world.
And and let's be honest, I mean, he's one of
the most recognizable people on earth, which is why there's
helicopters flying all over the place like somebody died. Uh.

(58:13):
Nobody died. Uh. So I think there's part of that.
But then, you know, you think about Charles Lindbergh and
the Lindbergh Baby a hundred years ago and think about
what what that story was. You know, you think about
the British press. You know, I talked about it with
Harry and Megan and the reason they moved to California
is to try to escape the British press. There's no doubt. Yeah.

(58:33):
Well I knew her in college. Well, she married a
guy that my that my wife and her friends were
friends with, so she was at parties and stuff. When
I how has this never come up before? We got
to bring this up next week. Well, she had the
same reputation with that guy that she did with the Prince.
Believe it or not, he's got a smaller microcos him

(58:55):
a real climber, so to speak. Uh, Petro's probably as
we appreciate the time. I'm good luck avoiding all of
the helicopters surrounding your house. We will talk to you
next week. I appreciate you, my man. I mean, you're
not going to get that kind of inside palis ferdis
parentual information anywhere else. No, that's why I said, we
got to make sure we got Petros on today, and
we didn't even do the Bachelor report, which will catch
up on next week too. There's too much data here.

(59:16):
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