Sunday, June 30, 2002
Tiger comfortable shooting birdies - and commercials
By VARTAN KUPELIAN
The Detroit News
ORLANDO, Fla. — The line is one of the funniest from the funniest golf movie ever made and the director wants Tiger Woods to recreate it.
“Tiger,” he barks. “Come here.”
Tony Scott, the director, is off to the side of the set, which has all the Hollywood trappings, watching a scene from Caddyshack on a monitor. Woods, the prescient one, knows what is coming next.
Scott's credits as a director include “Top Gun,” “Beverly Hills Cop II” and “Spy Games,” among others. He has directed superstars Tom Cruise, Eddie Murphy, Brad Pitt and Robert Redford.
This day, there is another superstar in front of the camera. It is Tiger Woods and Scott wants Woods to deliver the lines from Caddyshack in the same irreverent manner as comedian Bill Murray, who portrays the whacky course superintendent.
The line is, “Its in the hole!” Woods has seen the movie too often not to know it.
“I know what he does,” Woods says. “I just can't do that.”
He's right. Tiger Woods is not a slapstick comedian. He is the world's best golfer and there are some things he just cannot do. He cannot act silly with a golf club in his hand. He cannot even pretend to be irreverent where golf is concerned. That's not Tiger Woods.
This is Tiger Woods, champion golfer: With the cameras rolling, he steps out from behind a screen, tees his ball, and smacks a driver so far down the fairway the sound of the impact blocks out Scott's command.
Tiger Woods gets paid to hit golf balls and the scene is perfect, right down to the satisfied expression on Woods face as he saunters off the tee box. But Scott, a perfectionist like his subject, wants another take and barks again, “Action, Tiger.”
Nine days after winning the U.S. Open at Bethpage State Parks Black Course, Woods is home in Orlando. He calls the respite from the rigors of championship tournament golf a vacation. These are the kinds of things he does in his spare time. On this day, he's fulfilling a contractual obligation to Buick, the Detroit-based automobile company he endorses. He is filming a series of commercials which will be released in the fall, spots that will be used at dealer functions and documentaries that will spread the Buick gospel.
Woods studies the new Buick sports utility vehicle, poses for pictures and smiles a lot.
It is the unadulterated Tiger Woods, a rare glimpse of the private man. The world knows all about Woods on a golf course and practically nothing about him away from it. That's the way he wants it and needs it.
But before the day ends, we will have seen Woods in pajamas and in a shower.
On the set without fanfare
The wake-up call is at 5:30 a.m. Woods arrives promptly at Grand Cypress Resort with Kathy Thomas of the International Management Group, Mark McCormack's huge Cleveland-based representation empire.
There is no limousine, no helicopter, no fanfare. Unlike Hollywood superstars, Woods drives himself, in his Cadillac Escalade, to the resort, located in Orlando's Disney World area. The set is ready for the 6:30 a.m. curtain call and Woods' double, whose name is a closely-guarded secret, steps on his mark to begin all the preliminary shooting.
Four professional actors hired to play roles in the upcoming Buick commercials also appear. Three of them are golfers who will portray golfers and are excited by the opportunity to meet Woods. At some point during the day, when things slow down, they have brought cameras and they will ask Woods to pose, and he will do so graciously.
It is 8 a.m. when Woods steps out of the custom bus that will be his base for the day, where he will take his breaks, read, have lunch and invite an acquaintance or two for chats.
He is in the shade of a tree - the Florida sun and humidity are already sapping energy this early in the morning - when he sees somebody he knows. Somebody from his golf world.
“What are you doing here?” says Woods, extending a hand.
A handshake with Tiger Woods isn't something you'd expect in his other world. One handshake would mean 10 more and then 100 more. It is safer for Woods, anywhere near a golf course, to dispense with such formalities and familiarities. It is better to be distant, safer that way. Golfers protect their hands like pianists. It is where the feel comes from and a world-class golfer without feel is a cabinet-maker, not a birdie-maker.
The taping of the commercials moves briskly. Everything is on cue. Woods is sharp, to no one's surprise.
“He's terrific to deal with,” says Dave Moore, executive creative director for McCann-Erickson Detroit, the agency producing the ads for Buick.
“He never complains and he's a much better actor than some actors.”
“There's a naturalness to him, a kind of boyishness that comes across without pretense. He is very comfortable in front of the cameras.”
Preparing for victory in his own way
It has rained every day for more than a week here. The forecast is for more rain. The production staffs and Buick officials are antsy. They brace for the worst. They get Woods today, and that's it. They need help from above to get in a solid 10-hour day and so far the weather has been perfect. It's hot but that's not a problem. Production assistants have hair dryers to dry the blotches of sweat on Woods trademark Sunday red shirt.
Shooting is way ahead of schedule. The rain is holding off and Woods is talking about fly fishing, golf, fast cars and whatever else might come up.
Woods has won seven of the last 11 major championships. He goes after his ninth major title - halfway to the record of 18 held by Jack Nicklaus - at the famed Muirfield Golf Club in Gullane, Scotland, in two weeks. Woods has never seen Muirfield but his preparation isn't focused on Muirfield, he says. At least, that's his position for public consumption.
Woods' threshold for work is limitless but how exactly that translates into what he does is a private matter. In his own time and in his own way, he will get ready and be ready for Muirfield.
This much is known: Woods has prepared for majors in the past by watching old video tapes of great champions and the great courses on which majors are contested. He studies the courses like an architect examines blueprints - in great detail down to every last nook and cranny.
Before the 2000 British Open at St. Andrews, Woods carefully plotted the course set by Englishman Nick Faldo, who won the Claret Jug on the Old Course by 5 shots in 1990. Faldo is the expert on Muirfield, where he won the last two Open championships in 1987 and 1992. Woods isn't sure exactly what his approach will be for Muirfield, where the world will be watching his quest for golf's Grand Slam. For now, he has no plans to watch tapes of Muirfield.
“I might just go there and play,” Woods says.
Even if that's the case, Woods knows the secret to winning major championships. He must. He's won so many at such an early stage of his career.
“As a kid, you just dream of winning one,” he says. “To put yourself in that position, and I've done it a few times. It's so hard to describe how good it feels to win one major championship because it takes so much out of you.”
That is why he needs this break from competition.
“It's so difficult to do because you have to really play well,” he continues. “You've got to be at the top of your game in order to win a major championship. You can't go out and slop it around and win.”
The Tiger Slam - all four major trophies sitting on his mantel at the same time, even if not all were achieved in the same calendar year - is remarkable.
“That was a very special time in my life,” he says.
The scene shifts to an open field where two Buick products are positioned for promotional shoots.
While the cameras get into position, Woods is fiddling with his clubs.
“Is this the A set, or a back-up?” he is asked.
“This is it.”
Woods is examining the grooves in his forged Titleist 8-iron like a diamond-cutter.
“The grooves are narrowing, just a bit,” Woods says. “See?”
He points to the second groove from the bottom, square in the middle of the club face.
“Right here. You can see the narrowing. There's not much left in these clubs.”
“Well, if you didn't always hit it in the same spot, they wouldn't wear out,” he is told, “and by the way, how close are you to switching to new irons from Nike?”
“Close,” he says.
A few minutes later, he's taking a breather and reading a national golf publication. He's on the cover but it's not the magazine that he's paid to represent. He puts the magazine down, cover first.
“I'm on the cover but there's nothing from me in there,” he says, miffed at the intrusion.
Smooth spokesperson
The discussion turns to his role as spokesperson and the day's events.
“I don't mind doing it,” he says. “It's a long day, that's the only drawback to it. The people here are really nice and have fun.”
While other stars usually seek seclusion on such occasions, Woods has been outgoing in his dealings with the folks from Buick. When he's not on camera or doing other essentials, like signing autographs for Buick dealers, he's playing cards, telling stories, posing for Instamatics.
The commercials aren't designed to reflect anything about his persona, public or private, and there is nothing he wants the ads to say about himself.
“Not necessarily,” he says. “My job is to promote a product the best way I possibly can for the company I represent. I try to do my best to make sure that happens. My public persona really doesn't matter to me. What really matters to me is what my closest friends think and those people who are closest to me and obviously respect and care about me the most.”
Someone asks Woods if he can do a couple of promotional lines.
“No,” says Woods, frowning.
The feigned scowl turns quickly into an easy smile.
He does the lines, an introduction or two, and more. Woods is moving through the day with as much ease as he moves through the PGA Tour. He's loose and smooth. When Scott, the director, next barks, “Action,” Tiger the star is getting into a Buick Rendezvous and jammin' to the tunes on the car radio. It's not a compact disc of Sergio Garcia's Greatest Hits.
The final shoot requires a change of wardrobe. Off to the north, the skies are getting darker and word arrives that it's pouring in downtown Orlando, some 20 miles away. But so far, the rain has stayed away.
Ten days earlier, at Bethpage, Garcia, a brash 21-year-old Spaniard, had criticized the United States Golf Association for continuing to play in a downpour. Among other things, Garcia said play would have been suspended if Woods, who had completed his round earlier in the day before the worst of the weather arrived, was still on the golf course. In his outburst, Garcia decried Woods always getting the better time draw, the better weather, the better breaks.
It's true. Woods has enjoyed his fair share of good fortune but it's not the USGA or the PGA Tour or any other organization responsible for that. There's a much higher
power than the blue jackets of the USGA looking out for Woods.
But on the set, the threat of storms grows. The pace picks up from brisk to frenzied. Woods is seated in a golf cart, with his pajamas on. His PJs are a dark blue Nike tee shirt and black shorts. Golf's richest man and biggest icon doesn't wear silk pajamas - not even in make-believe. Even in his dreams, he keeps it real.
“You've got to be kidding,” he says. “This is me. These are my pajamas.”
The scene calls for Woods to awaken from a sleep.
The man from Woods' golf world points to the darkening sky.
“Quite a day,” he says. “I get to see you in pajamas and pretty soon I get to see you take a shower.”
Woods shakes his head and says, “Youre a beaut.”
The scene gets done, double-time.
The skies open. The downpour is torrential.
Woods, done with his duties for the day, scampers to his car.
As others are scurrying for cover, already drenched, Tiger Woods does a drive-by, smiling and waving. It never rains on Tiger Woods' parade.
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Tiger comfortable shooting birdies - and commercials
