cover image Playing Through: Straight Talk on Hard Work, Big Dreams, and Adventures with Tiger

Playing Through: Straight Talk on Hard Work, Big Dreams, and Adventures with Tiger

Earl Woods. HarperResource, $24 (269pp) ISBN 978-0-06-270222-7

The unusually close bond between golfer Tiger Woods and his father, Earl, former Green Beret and the young star's first coach, has already become part of the game's lore. Here Earl Woods, writing with Chicago Tribune sportswriter Mitchell, recalls his own life and the experiences that enabled him to train his son so successfully to excel on the links. An orphan at 13, he was raised by an older sister. He played baseball in college and chose the military as a career, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Woods so stresses the importance of hard work and human decency that at times he sounds almost theological. He emerges as tough-minded as well, as when he argues that the NCAA all but forced his son to leave college and turn pro, and he pulls no punches in labeling professional golf the most racist of all sports and private country clubs still the bastion of white supremacy. Brisk and likely to be controversial, Woods's memoir will be of greatest interest to his son's fans. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (June)