Tiger 2.0

[dawgpounddiehard]

The thread on Verducci got me fired up about this latest issue of SI.

I love his story on being an MLB umpire and like I said in that thread, it was the perfect example of how to use the first-person angle and use it well.

Then, that brings me to the story on Tiger by John Garrity. When I saw this week's cover, I was excited to read the story on Tiger... the quote on the cover caught my attention and it helps that I'm a golf junky.

But right away, Garrity throws himself in to the story, but not in the way Verducci did. It starts with Garrity in a conference room for 10 minutes with Tiger and a Nike Golf exec with a G5 plane sitting outside:

"When my time is up, I reach across the table and shake Tiger's hand. Nodding to my friend, I walk out of the room, down the hallway, out the front door of the terminal, across the tarmac and up the stairs of the G5. What? You thought the plane was Tiger's?"

Fine... then we learn about an instance where he was in 14-year-old Tiger's room, at 16, Garrity had a conversation with Tiger regarding how he will have logos on his golf bag soon enough and how later in life he played in a pro-am with Tiger. It was like he was rubbing in the reader's face.

OK, I do cringe when I see people rip other writers on here... I just felt like I got taken A story that could have been about a maturing Tiger was ruined by Garrity making himself a major player in the copy.

 

[CapeCodder]

The thread on Verducci got me fired up about this latest issue of SI.

I love his story on being an MLB umpire and like I said in that thread, it was the perfect example of how to use the first-person angle and use it well.

Then, that brings me to the story on Tiger by John Garrity. When I saw this week's cover, I was excited to read the story on Tiger... the quote on the cover caught my attention and it helps that I'm a golf junky.

But right away, Garrity throws himself in to the story, but not in the way Verducci did. It starts with Garrity in a conference room for 10 minutes with Tiger and a Nike Golf exec with a G5 plane sitting outside:

"When my time is up, I reach across the table and shake Tiger's hand. Nodding to my friend, I walk out of the room, down the hallway, out the front door of the terminal, across the tarmac and up the stairs of the G5. What? You thought the plane was Tiger's?"

Fine... then we learn about an instance where he was in 14-year-old Tiger's room, at 16, Garrity had a conversation with Tiger regarding how he will have logos on his golf bag soon enough and how later in life he played in a pro-am with Tiger. It was like he was rubbing in the reader's face.

OK, I do cringe when I see people rip other writers on here... I just felt like I got taken A story that could have been about a maturing Tiger was ruined by Garrity making himself a major player in the copy.

The story was really confusing. I applaud him for trying to do something different--I thought it was supposed to be about spending time with Tiger on the road, checking in with a legend at what many presumed to be the midpoint of his pro career. But I agree--when contrasted with Verducci's first-person account of life as an umpire, it's easy to see where these types of stories where the writer is an active participant in the goings-on can be tough to write.

 

[TwoGloves]

I just finished reading it. To me, the story was more about the writer than Tiger. Didn't like it.

 

[MileHigh]

Halfway through it and it's not blowing me away.

 

[maberger]

it's all cover up for only getting 10 minutes with tiger

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

When I started reading the story, I had to double check the byline to make sure it wasn't Karl Taro Greenfeld.

I didn't finish it, for the reason that dude just had to insert himself into the story.

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

I did not get that story at all. The editor's note made it sound like he got amazing access to Tiger, but the story had no great quotes from El Tigre and was confusing and bland. It read like it was written by a really bad Gary Smith imitator.

 

[zeke12]

Sheer tripe.

Who the **** cares about any of that?

 

[jimnorden]

was expecting a lot more ... bored the heck out of me and nothing real new about tiger.

 

[playthrough]

Author was way too hung up on the private-plane thing, and the being-Tiger's-auditor thing lost me.

At the same time, I say the author had two strikes against him to begin with. It's very, very difficult if not impossible to write something new on Tiger. He is still in his prime so I don't understand the "Tiger 2.0" stuff. There may be another level of maturity and perspective a few years after he becomes a father, but we're not there yet.

 

[Write-brained]

I'm relieved to see this thread. I read about half the story this afternoon and I'm still irritated with the story, trying to figure out what I was missing. It was well below SI's standards.

 

[clutchcargo]

Two months ago I wrote on this site about how SI falls all over itself these days doing first-person journalism, interjecting themselves into so many stories, and garrity was one of the culprits then. Now two of these in one week. When will this self-serving reporting end? SI is so full of itself, patting itself on the back, and any reader with half a brain has got to see through this and be nauseated by it. Yes, there still is a fair amount of stuff about SI to like, but this other junk ....

 

[zeke12]

My main question is, Who the hell did they think was the audience for this piece?

 

[Jones]

I haven't read this particular story, but just as a good rule of thumb for the yung'uns out there:

If you're granted ten minutes and ten minutes only by a subject for a big takeout, it's better to...

1) tell him to go **** himself and spike the story, or

2) write the story around the subject, as in Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

...than agree to the ten-minute limit. What are you going to get in ten minutes? Nothing, except for the feeling that you're somehow beholden to whatever douchebag just snapped you off in ten minutes.

Again, better to strike out on your own, or not at all.

Unless that subject happens to be Tiger, in which case it's best of all to ring him in the face with a one-iron.

 

[Alma]

it's all cover up for only getting 10 minutes with tiger

ding ding ding ding!

 

[Write-brained]

I haven't read this particular story, but just as a good rule of thumb for the yung'uns out there:

If you're granted ten minutes and ten minutes only by a subject for a big takeout, it's better to...

1) tell him to go **** himself and spike the story, or

2) write the story around the subject, as in Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

...than agree to the ten-minute limit. What are you going to get in ten minutes? Nothing, except for the feeling that you're somehow beholden to whatever douchebag just snapped you off in ten minutes.

Again, better to strike out on your own, or not at all.

Unless that subject happens to be Tiger, in which case it's best of all to ring him in the face with a one-iron.

The lead says he got 10 minutes, but at the front of the magazine the editor wrote that Look-At-Me-I'm-John-Garrity spent more than six months with Tiger.

It's just a poorly constructed story with way too much attention on the writer.

 

[Jones]

Just read the story, or what I could of it. I know from stalking Tiger myself that he's a nightmare assignment and a terrible interview, so I'm willing to give John Garrity the benefit of the doubt.

But ten minutes, six months, it doesn't matter. If you don't have the story, you don't have the story.

This cover should have gone to Verducci.

 

[e4]

2) write the story around the subject, as in Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

That would have been incredible.

After reading the editor's note about the piece, about how Tiger has grown into a new phase of his life, losing his father and becoming one himself, etc., I was so hoping to find out what this guy was truly like... what he was like behind all the money and corporate images... what he meant to people in his private life... how he deals with expectations people have of him in his public life... what problems a guy with all the money in the world has and how he deals with them... how he has changed over the years... that sort of stuff...

There were some great first person accounts in there... about how the writer knew Tiger as a kid but could only get 10 minutes now, etc.... but basically every question I had went unanswered because the narrative came from the writer's vantage point and not from the people closest to the subject, the very people who could tell me what I want to know... assuming, of course, access and a willingness to talk

 

[21]

Tiger learned at the knee of the Master of Say Nothing, aka Michael Jordan. Smile, shake hands firmly, pretend you don't notice the Nike chaperone, laugh too long at moderately funny joke, pause for serious gaze and earnest meaning-of-life comment, interrupted by Nike chaperone leaping to his feet at the buzzer. Thanks for coming, love the shoes, we'll do lunch!

A guy who says nothing in a year--or 10--isn't giving you much in ten minutes. Not sure why anyone would expect more.

 

[zeke12]

Just read the story, or what I could of it. I know from stalking Tiger myself that he's a nightmare assignment and a terrible interview, so I'm willing to give John Garrity the benefit of the doubt.

But ten minutes, six months, it doesn't matter. If you don't have the story, you don't have the story.

This cover should have gone to Verducci.

Exactly what I thought. Because it was a blatantly obvious write around. Spike it.

As in my dad called and asked me about it, as if to say, "****, son, if this guy can write for Sports Illustrated, what are you still doing at a newspaper?"