Tiger Woods wrote a piece for The Players’ Tribune, Derek Jeter’s new website, on Tuesday that blasts Dan Jenkins for a recent parody interview that the Golf Digest writer came up with.
In an attempt at being funny, Jenkins fabricated an interview with Woods during which he asked the fake Tiger (in other words, himself) questions that allowed him to beat up on Tiger’s character. Here are the ones that Woods highlighted in his response.
Dan: “Why haven’t you fired Steiny, by the way? You’ve fired everybody else …”
Tiger: “I’ll probably get around to it. I like to fire people …”
Dan: “In many cases, tips are a part of their salary.”
Tiger: “So let ‘em go find a better job.”
Dan: “Marko (O’Meara) was your best friend in golf at one time.”
Tiger: “I’m sorry. I can’t place him. Did he play the tour?”
Woods was not amused. The “Steiny” that Jenkins referred to is Tiger’s agent Mark Steinberg, who wrote a letter to Golf Digest demanding an explanation for the verbal attack. Tiger referred to the piece as “character assassination.”
“The truth is, Jenkins has no idea how I think or feel about any of the things he claims to know about, which is why he had to make things up,” Woods wrote. “Frustration or resentment because I have not been more available to him should not give him a license for an underhanded attack on me as an athlete, as a professional and as a person.”
Jenkins, one of the most well-known writers in golf, has had an axe to grind with Tiger for quite some time. Earlier this year, Jenkins compared Woods to some other golf legends and said Tiger is different in that he has nothing interesting to say.
“I never really knew Tiger,” Jenkins said. “He won’t let anybody know him. I think the reason is that he doesn’t have anything to say. All he knows is how to hit a golf ball.
“All the other guys — (Ben) Hogan read books, he was in the oil business, he was a huge football fan. We talked about football more than we talked about golf.”
For someone who admitted he never got to know Tiger, Jenkins seemed to take a lot of liberties in his parody interview. That’s obviously what Woods is furious about.
