Sideline to Byline: ‘Tiger’ uplifts discussion on mental health

.....It’s the exact opposite of a gushy Golf channel piece — and that’s exactly what I love about it. The filmmakers dug into his infamous relationship with his father, Earl Woods, who ever since Tiger was four claimed his son would be the world’s next golf messiah. Tiger’s life was fueled by his father’s approval and tortured by the man’s meticulous control over his son’s image. 

Tiger struggled to craft his own identity outside of his father’s pre-planned vision of a golf robot, and the film frames Tiger’s dramatic fall from grace through the lens of a man lost in grief, drug addiction and sex addiction: all true forms of mental illness.....

.....2020 taught us that sports can be taken away in an instant. A player’s career can end with the snap of one bone or a diagnosis that prevents them from ever playing again. What happens when their worth is built solely on their stats sheet and athletic performance? Their very human struggles with mental illness or with life can become vilified and mocked if it takes them off the court......

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Bethany`s Notes: A new documentary of the rise of Tiger Woods is now on HBO. The filmmakers look at the life of Tiger trying to find his identity outside of golf. They follow through the grief of his father passing, his drug addition, and his sex addiction back to his most recent success.