Tiger & Phil: Golf's most fascinating rivalry?
A review of Bob Harig's new book tackling Woods versus Mickelson
Let’s be clear on one thing: Bob Harig signed up for a tough gig when he set out to write a book charting the rivalry between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.
Why? Well, there’s the obvious protest that nobody has come close to achieving ‘rival’ status with The Striped One. That Tiger’s numbers are in another league. That even in the latter stages of their careers, when Mickelson was infinitely fitter than Woods and picked up a Major championship at 50 (Kiawah Island 2021), Tiger could match him by producing a twilight performance of similar enormity (Augusta 2019). It’s an objection Harig doesn’t shy away from in Tiger & Phil.
And then there’s the fact that golf is an awful sport when it comes to painting pictures of a rivalry. There are no guaranteed top-of-the-table clashes. Head-to-head pairings in decisive rounds are few and far between. And it’s not a game of direct combat, where one guy can slam a winner past the other to make the ultimate statement, or flatten his opposite number in a tackle for the ages. In golf, where so much of the action is unspoken and psychological, you have to look deeper.
And kudos to Harig for taking the time and trouble to do that. For doing enough to justify the book’s tagline.
I had my doubts at times. A good quarter of the book, which covers their respective rises to prominence, is mostly about how Tiger and Phil were living entirely separate lives and probably had little more than a passing awareness of each other. Which was already a clear sign that the ‘rivalry’ per se was not going to fill an entire book. That you had to accept Tiger & Phil for what it was: a highlights (and lowlights) reel of the two players’ lives, with the attempt to connect their stories where possible.
But by the end, I was satisfied that Harig squeezed enough out of the rivalry thing. Where opportunity presented itself, he went for it. Hence a full chapter on the duo’s ill-fated Ryder Cup partnership at Oakland Hills in 2004. And their final-round duel at Doral the following year. The 1999 US Open and their Ryder Cup careers get significant attention too. And at the heart of the book is a chapter called Tension, which gets into a couple of the off-course controversies between the pair.
But the rest of the time, you’re mostly visiting the defining moments of each player’s career, whether they were spectacular fails (Phil at Winged Foot in 2006; Tiger’s fall from grace away from the course, etc.) or moments of triumph (The Tiger Slam; Phil winning the Open in 2013, etc.). All these are essentially Tiger chapters or Phil chapters, albeit with a bit of context in terms of what the other was doing and thinking. This format means there’s a degree of chronological jumping – something that makes it harder for the reader to see the ‘rivalry’ thread (such as it is) taking shape.
That said, I’m not sure there was necessarily a better format for this task. And if you pay enough attention, you’ll be able to distinguish how these two went from being amateur strangers to a point where they were trading green jackets for a couple of years in the mid-2000s, the period that came closest to producing a true rivalry and did have its share of tensions. And then how things gradually simmered down as Woods and Mickelson went along wildly differing roads, developing a level of respect as they grew older and regular success grew more elusive.
With each of them having nailed a remarkable Major as the light fades on their careers, completing the book in early 2022 seemed a perfect time to draw a line under their stories. But these two are never done, are they? They both keep on making headlines – we won’t go into all that now – and have already offered up enough for at least another two chapters this spring alone.
But it can’t be helped: such is the lot of the author writing about real life!
Whether or not you truly believe in the ‘fascinating rivalry’, there’s plenty of enjoyment, entertainment and learning to be had reading Tiger & Phil. I’ll end off with a few notes on a couple of pros and cons I picked up along the way.
Pros
The beginning of the book is great. Starting the story in the thick of that disastrous Ryder Cup ‘partnership’ draws you right in.
There’s a quality collection of insider anecdotes, covering everything from notes stuffed in lockers to things said at Masters Champions’ Dinners.
Harig has gone to town interviewing a wide variety of people (about 150, apparently) who played with, caddied for, competed against or had some other contact with Woods and Mickelson. Many of them have no reason to hold back, and that makes them good choices.
It was refreshing to see Mickelson’s stellar junior and amateur career get some significant airtime. If you grew up amid all the noise around Tiger the Prodigy, it’s easy to forget that Mickelson won on the PGA Tour as an amateur – something Woods never came close to doing.
You’re getting two biographies in one. Kind of. As long as you take it as a highlights reel, rather than a blow-by-blow account.
The hardback edition will look great on your bookshelf!
Cons
We’re missing reflective, retrospective quotes from both Mickelson and Woods. Obviously, a juicy sit-down interview with the protagonists would be ideal for a book like this. However, I know this is easier said than done – as Harig explained in this interview with fellow Substack writer Geoff Shackelford. (Shame on Ernie Els’s busybody agent people as well!)
I wasn’t convinced the introduction was necessary. It detracted from a good opening chapter, and in many ways felt like it could have been fused with the conclusion.
Tiger versus Phil is published by St Martin’s Press and you can buy a copy via bookshop dot org here.
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