From the hearth: Excerpts of two conversations, nearly a year apart, with Golf Digest's Pete McDaniel. He helped Earl Woods with his book, Training a Tiger and collaborated with cohort Guy Yocum on helping Tiger with How I Play Golf. His book Uneven Lies: The Heroic Story of African-Americans in Golf was one of the better books from last year.

THR: I hadn't realized, Pete, how devastating the advent of carts were, essentially cutting off the one accepted avenue that Blacks had to enter the game, learn it, learn the nuances and even make something of a career at it.

PETE MCDANIEL: Absolutely. The majority of the pioneers who broke into this game came through the caddie ranks. And with the advent of the cart in the late '50s, early '60s, and certainly into the '70s, that began a decline of black players in the professional ranks.

THR: When people talk about why there aren't more black pros on tour, that's probably as clear an answer as we have?

PETE MCDANIEL: Absolutely. In fact, I refer to those guys who would be in their thirties and early forties now as the 'lost generation' of the black golfer. If you trace it back, those guys would've been born in the late '60s and early '70s.

THR: Pinehurst at one time had 500 regular and part-time caddies?

PETE MCDANIEL: How 'bout that. That's how I came up as a matter of fact. Started as a shag boy. That's like a glorified golden retriever.

But it was a great way of learning the game, especially when I was coming along because we couldn't play a lot of golf courses and we weren't affluent enough to afford any lessons so we picked up how to swing the golf club, how to conduct yourself on the golf course, from the people we caddied for.

THR: Is there still only one African American caddying on tour? Of course, the Masters allowing players to bring their own caddies struck something of a symbolic blow, as you note. You write: "Extinction for blacks in a service position once considered too demeaning for white Americans appears inevitable in the professional ranks."

PETE MCDANIEL: I'll give you an update. There's not one African American caddie for a top 50 player now. The one you referred to is Freddie Burns and he was caddying for Hal Sutton for a long time. I think they've parted ways.

THR: How do you see Tiger? As an anomaly or the culmination of a long and sometimes very difficult road of experience that runs through guys like Charlie Sifford and Bill Spiller, guys who really paid a price.

PETE MCDANIEL: That's exactly how I see Tiger, and I think he knows on whose shoulders his progress stands. Tiger has the benefit of two great cultures, and I think he's the best of both: a superb athlete but what I'm most proud of about Tiger is his ability to outthink his opponent.

THR: Consider his legacy, particularly within the African American golf community present and future.

PETE MCDANIEL: Well, I'll tell you what I think. I think that he will definitely have a big impact on African Americans. He's already having one. I will predict that within the next 10 years there will be quite a few African Americans infiltrating the ranks of the highest levels of golf. I believe, this may get a little philosophical for you, but I believe Tiger was given this gift by God to bring people together.

THR: The one thing with professional athletes is that they tend to be self-centered, to a certain extent they have to be. Even an Arthur Ashe was, for many years, consumed with winning tournaments. It often isn't until later that they recognize the impact they can have outside their sport.

PETE MCDANIEL: Tiger's different in that respect. I know he and his father talked about the impact he would have when Tiger was just a kid. He's quite a philanthropist. This is by design. He genuinely loves people and he wants to give back to the game that's given so much to him. He's very serious about it. Rarely do you see a professional athlete in season give up his time to other people by way of clinics and exhibitions but that's what Tiger does.

THR: We meet or get reacquainted with a number of interesting people in Uneven Lies. You call them the "shadow people:" Herman Mitchell, Lee Trevino's old partner, Frank Carpenter, the long time steward at Augusta National, Charlie Owens.

PETE MCDANIEL: Yes, I call them that because they're basically in the background. They're service people and they don't get a lot of credit but they are a very important part of the industry. Frank Carpenter at Augusta National, for instance, is instrumental in the day-to-day operation of one of the greatest golf clubs in America.

THR: [In Uneven Lies] You detail the rise and collapse of the PGA's insidious "Caucasian Clause." It's a fascinating story. What would the world be like had it not been repealed?

PETE MCDANIEL: There would have been no Lee Trevino. There would have been no Chi Chi Rodriguez. There would have been no persons of color playing on the PGA Tour. There would've been no Tiger Woods. That's just a fact.

THR: People will want to know the extent of Tiger's involvement [in the writing of How I Play Golf]. Was he, as they say nowadays, engaged?

PETE MCDANIEL: He was. He was quite involved in the project. When Tiger wants something done, he commits himself to it and the way the process works, you know how it works, we got him on the phone and spent several hours with him and we were able to write the book from that. He also went over the proofs and approved what he liked and told us to fix what he didn't like.

THR: Did the extent of his involvement reveal anything to you about his personality? You've worked together now for some time.

PETE MCDANIEL: I've been working with Tiger for about seven years now, so his commitment to excellence does not surprise me. It was the same approach he took to the book that he takes on the golf course and to his game. He is a perfectionist and he wanted the best product possible.

THR: I heard him tell Oprah Winfrey that it's geared to kids. Is that right?

PETE MCDANIEL: Well, you know. Tiger still thinks like a kid. And I think what he meant was graphically it's geared to kids because it's got a lot of photographs in it, and caricatures of Tiger to explain the instruction.

THR: You and Guy Yocum have been around the block writing instruction, it's one of the banes of writing about golf. Was there ever a moment where the two of you - old hands at this - listened to Tiger and went "Woa?"

PETE MCDANIEL: Not instructionally because, as you said, Guy and I have been around the block many, many times. Tiger continues to do things that amazes us like his 2-iron stinger. He also has some other little shots, like around the green with a bowed wrist chip shot that I had never heard of before, so I guess Guy and I kind of wondered what kind of mind this kid has.

THR: Pete, some of the anecdotes in Training a Tiger…Tiger at age 2 memorizing Earl's work number and calling and begging him to go practice…

PETE MCDANIEL: I tease Tiger about kind of stuff all the time. The old man, not being prone to exaggeration as you might imagine, claims that the kid started playing when he was six months old, or something like that. His mother and I were talking and she said that story gets wilder all the time. Pretty soon Earl will claim that he was swinging the club in the womb. So…

THR: I know he was a big Jack Nicklaus fan. Was there one book that he cuddled up to?

PETE MCDANIEL: I'm not sure. He hasn't really said. All I know is that Nicklaus was the benchmark. So he set his sights on trying to emulate Jack and he does it in a lot of ways, most effectively winning. He is the consummate winner. Tiger certainly wants to be the best in the game and in order to do that he has to surpass Nicklaus's accomplishments. And in order to do that he has to perfect what he believes is his style of play, and that's aggressive, as he explains in the book, but it's also conservative when he needs to be conservative. I think that's the toughest lesson Tiger's had to learn: when to throttle back when he has to.

THR: What can readers realistically expect to take from this book?

PETE MCDANIEL: (Laughs.) I think Oprah asked him that and Tiger's answer was that he wrote the book not as a panacea, it's not a cure-all, and the average player would think, 'What can I learn from Tiger Woods? He's the greatest player in the world right now and he can do things that no mere mortal can do.' But what you can take from this book is some of the life lessons that Tiger has learned. He's not claiming that you'll be another Tiger Woods. That's impossible, but you can be the best that you can be.

THR: Is your sense that his life will be altered by the events of September 11th?

PETE MCDANIEL: I think we will all be a little bit more aware of our surroundings because I think we got a little complacent. I don't know if Tiger ever really is complacent because I don't know if the public knows this but he gets death threats almost daily so he's always on full alert, or at least his staff is, the security people who look after him. But he's learned how to deal with it so I don't know if it's going to alter his life that much, his routine that much. He might be a little bit more leery about traveling overseas but other than that I think it's going to be routine for Tiger.

THR: With respect to the royalties on this, a personal question: your membership at Cypress Point must be imminent.

PETE MCDANIEL: Surely you jest.

THR: What's your sense of how Tiger plays within the African-American community? How is he perceived?

PETE MCDANIEL: I know there's a great sense of pride that a person of color, not necessarily an African-American but a person of color has come along and really dominated the game. I believe we had a similar feeling when Lee Trevino came out and was really a dominant force on tour so African-Americans love for people of color to establish themselves and I think that's how we identify with Tiger, not so much as an African-American because we realize he's multi-ethnic but we embrace him because of his unbelievable talent and his will to be the best that he can be.

THR: Is Tiger just flat-out the most competitive person you've ever run up against?

PETE MCDANIEL: Well, he's pretty competitive but I'll tell you what, I used to play against some guys who would bet $5 but only had $1, you know. It's a little bit different. The guy has money to burn and when you heard Charles Barkley say (on Oprah) that Tiger was the cheapest, stingiest person in the world, he is indeed that. He's very generous in some respects but if you're talking about getting in his pocket, you're going to have a hard time

© THR, 2001

Talking Points - Edition I - Ron Green
Talking Points - Edition II - Dr. Patrick Cohn
Talking Points - Edition III - Bradley S. Klein
Talking Points - Edition IV - Doug Sanders
Talking Points - Edition V - Curt Sampson
Talking Points - Edition VI - Geoff Shackelford
Talking Points - Edition VII - Bryan Gathright
Talking Points - Edition VIII - Tim Rosaforte, Ray March and Gary Player
Talking Points - Edition IX - Dave Pelz
Talking Points - Edition X - Don Wade
Talking Points - Edition XI - Sidney Matthew
Talking Points - Edition XII - Bud Shrake
Talking Points - Edition XIII - Betsy Rawls
Talking Points - Edition XIV - Roy McCoy, Cliff Rampy and Susan Naylor
Talking Points - Edition XV - Cindy Figg-Currier & Dan O'Neill