JUST-IN :James Patterson in a Media press reveals a bombshell admission on why he needed to tell Tiger woods’ story.

“I had no interest in trashing him”: James Patterson on why he needed to tell Tiger Woods’ story

The author shares his opinions on the controversial golfer, book banning and George Clooney’s New York Times op-ed

“I just wanted to tell the story and let people figure out.”

When the “story” in question is recapping the entire life and career of an athlete as illustrious — and scrutinized — as professional golfer Tiger Woods, the stakes are considerably high.

If anyone’s up to the task, it’s James Patterson.

“He’s an important figure in history.”

“Tiger, Tiger,” the uber-prolific best-selling author’s latest book (July 15, Little Brown and Company), strays from his thriller-heavy fiction portfolio. It’s a biography born out of Patterson’s general enjoyment of golf — he’s already penned a fiction series centered on a burgeoning pro golfer — and the shared knowledge that Woods as a major figure.

Second only to the legendary “Golden Bear” Jack Niklaus in his Masters Tournament victories (Woods has five Green Jackets to Niklaus’ six), Woods from a young age was considered to be a golfing prodigy. His parents, Earl and Kultida Woods, were immensely supportive of their son’s talent and ambitions, even taking out a second mortgage on their home so that a teenaged Tiger Woods was eligible to play in the then-nascent American Junior Golf Association (AJGA), where he could compete amongst top junior golfers and gain exposure to college recruiting scouts.

“Tiger, Tiger” delves deeply into Woods’ family, presenting a candid portrait of their unique dynamic and diverse background. Woods’ multiethnic identity — Earl was half Black, a quarter Native American and a quarter Chinese, while Kultida is half Thai, a quarter white and a quarter Chinese — has been a focal point of the athlete’s career and his life more broadly, and as Patterson elucidates, sometimes a point of contention. “Tiger, Tiger” notes how though his mother, Tida, calls him the “Universal Child” who can “hold everyone together,” she also expressed frustration about how the media often construed him as explicitly Black. Woods, who coined the self-referential term “Cablinasian” to describe his mixed heritage, drew public ire in 1997 when he told Oprah that he shared in that same frustration.

In the book, Patterson also doesn’t shy away from addressing Woods’ personal woes — namely, his bouts of infidelity that led to the 2010 divorce from his ex-wife Elin Nordegren and the stark shift in Woods’ public perception that lingered for some time after. But to hear it in Patterson’s own words, “Let’s forgive people within reason.”

“I had no interest in trashing him,” Patterson tells me over Zoom of Woods’ past controversies. “He’s had some real bumps in the road and they’re in the book, but I’m not going to make judgments.”

Check out the full interview with Patterson, in which he explains how he told Woods’ story differently, why he thinks Woods is a good dad in spite of his past scandals, and the “big problem” of book censorship.

Oh, so what? Stop bragging. I don’t care how old you are.

(Laughs) Your books have been in my mom and dad’s curio cabinet since I was a kid. I’ve read several of your thrillers but I’ve actually never read anything of yours about sports. What in particular drew you to want to write a biography about Tiger Woods other than his fame and talent? He’s been the subject of plenty of biographies already.

Other than his fame or talent? Come on, that covers too much ground. I tell stories and I think in general most of the people who write about him — they’re not storytellers. They put a lot of facts down where they editorialize, and what I wanted to do was just tell story after story after story that kind of captures — not necessarily for sports fans but for everybody because I think he’s an important figure in history. That’s just because of his golf but also because of the trajectory of his life — from being on “The Mike Douglas Show” at five and predicting that he would beat [Jack] Nicklaus and Tom Watson before he was 21 to the fact that even though he lists himself as Asian, he’s talked about as Black. And that was obviously a big deal for his father too. Earl really was interested in him making some real inroads into golf and also into white-dominated sports.

So I just think he’s a major figure. I think this is a book for a lot of people who aren’t necessarily golfers, who don’t care about golfers but I would like to hear his story and want to hear it as a storyteller would tell it, not as a sports writer. There’s a lot of editorializing these days on the front pages of newspapers which I don’t really approve of. I don’t think they should be editorializing on the front page. I think on the front page, just lay out the story as best you know with the facts. And same thing with sports writers. They always want to editorialize and show us what they are. I just wanted to tell the story and let people figure out. They’ll do their own, you know, how do they feel about him, how do they feel about us human beings. I had no interest in trashing him. He’s had some real bumps in the road, and they’re in the book, but I’m not going to make judgments.

“I think Tiger’s a really smart person.”

In fact, I think it’s interesting in terms of who he is, how those stories, how his life is a big part of what happened. Like what happened with his wife. If you think about his life, he was always shielded from kind of — he was like, “Go golf, be great at golf, and don’t worry about the other stuff.” And when he grew up and he was a stutterer and he was nearsighted and then when he went to Stanford, they called him Urkel. He was a nerd, you know, and he was kind of out of it. And I think that when he fell in love with this very beautiful, I think quite nice person, I don’t think he was ready for it. I don’t think he knew what was going on. I don’t know if he even dated much. There was very little that I’ve ever read or heard about with him in terms of, you know, so I don’t think he was at all prepared for it. That doesn’t excuse him for running around and whatever, but you understand it a little better.

The level of attention to detail in the book is incredibly noteworthy. You include conversations and observations that span decades of Tiger’s life. And in specific regard to his ex-wife, you even include, for example, a text message that Tiger sent to one of his alleged mistresses. And Elin sends a lure text to the woman after seeing it. How do you approach conducting research for a biography like this and how that might differ from writing?