Getty Image / Mark Dadswell
It has been nearly 14 years since the Tiger Woods cheating scandal broke and became the biggest story in sports. Coincidentally, 14 is the number of Major Championships he had won prior to filming the interview below which took place just weeks before Tiger’s cheating scandal became public.
Tiger Woods went on to win the 2009 Australian Masters, which was a European Tour / DP World Tour event back then. Just looking back at the leaderboard from that event is a walk down memory lane. Golfers like Jason Dufner, Stuart Appleby, Rod Pampling, and Aaron Baddeley were in the mix.
The only golfer still performing well in the OWGR standings from that event is Adam Scott who finished t6th at -8 while Tiger Woods won it all at -14 (Greg Chalmers was 2nd at -12). Somehow, this is one of the stats from this bizarro-world Tiger Woods time capsule that breaks my mind: he only earned €173,117.54 for winning the event, or $183,741 in USD.
$184K for Tiger Woods flying to Australia and winning a tourney! Unreal. But get this… He was paid a $3 million appearance fee. Tiger got paid pennies for winning a huge tournament but paid more than modern Major Championship money just for appearing.
Rare Tiger Woods Interview Unearthed From Just Before His Cheating Scandal
This interview from 60 Minutes Australia‘s Tara Brown was just unearthed from their vault. It shows Tiger Woods just weeks before his cheating scandal broke and he is at this point in his life on top of the world. Tiger was the most successful athlete on Earth.
60 Minutes Australia: “Did you ever think that to be a good golfer would meant that you would be the most famous sportsman on the planet?”
Tiger Woods: “That’s never my intent. I could give… I really didn’t care about being famous. I only are about winning golf tournaments and winning Major Championships and trying to beat these guys out here. That to me was my goal.”
‘A Young Tiger Would Do Anything To Avoid The Spotlight’
That statement from the interviewer carried a LOT more weight in the coming weeks after this interview aired. Soon, the Tiger Woods cheating scandal would break and he would crash his SUV into a fire hydrant and tree near his home. His life was spiraling and ironically, the spotlight would be shone brighter than ever.
Speaking about fame, Tiger Woods said “it’s good on one occasion that you can help a lot of people. But frustrating in the sense that people don’t really leave you alone at certain times. Especially when you have a bit to eat and you have food in your mouth. That aspect sometimes can be a little bit of an annoyance but the people mean well and that’s the thing.
Interestingly, they did touch on him ‘being human.’ But only in the sense that Tiger Woods was beatable on the golf course. Ultimately, we don’t learn anything new about Tiger Woods from this interview. It has, of course, existed for years. It is, however, an interesting look at the life of the most famous athlete on the planet at a time before everything came crashing down.
These days, Tiger Woods is about to debut a secret new golf course in Mexico. It is absolutely stunning.