'Tiger' the HBO Docuseries Explores the Life of Golf Star Tiger Woods

An Intimate Look at an International Golf Legend

"Tiger" a two-part documentary series explores the rise and fall of international world champion pro-golfer Tiger Woods by way of the namesake best-selling book and the people who have known him intimately - detailing his life both in and out of the spotlight. Matthew Hamachek, the director of the project, shares a few other the revelations he encountered while doing research.

"What's sort of fascinating about Tiger is that he is probably one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, but I don't think the public really knew much about him at all beyond what was presented to us by Nike. And so, you know, the process of making a documentary is really listening to the people that were, that were there in person and really knew him well.

Surprising Production Challenges

The director shared that it was not always easy to potential interviewees to share their experiences with the golf phenomenon on camera. "A lot of the people we talked to are people who at one point in time sort of had an acrimonious split from Tiger whether it was his first girlfriend or his long time caddie, Steve Williams. But what was so fascinating to both of us was that after all of these years, they were still fiercely protective of Tiger. (…)so for us, one of the challenges was convincing all these people that we were going to make a complex, nuanced portrait of this guy. And it took at times several months to in order to convince people to actually sit in front of our camera and talk to us."

The Cruelty and Inconsistency of the Western Media

Hamachek also pointed out just how fickle the western media is as per events surrounding the controversies that made Tiger Woods a victim of their antics. "The public at large in the media really built him up quite a bit as he rose to fame and sort of started winning all these majors and everything. And a lot of those same people who built him up took a great deal, it seems took a great deal of pleasure in bringing him back down after the crash on Thanksgiving night in 2009 (…) the second he was back on the golf scene and he won his first tournament and sort of in the lead up to after even the 2019 Masters, all those same people were back to cheering him on again and building him up (…) I think that's a fascinating, fascinating part of the story."

Tiger — which includes never-before-seen footage and interviews of the renowned golf star, will premiere on HBO on the 10th of January.