The Cost of These Dreams

by Wright Thompson

  Tiger has cut off coaches and caddies and friends, rarely with a confrontation, just vanishing from their lives. It’s not out of spite, really; he’s focused on where he’s supposed to be going. The Western High class of 1994 held its 20-year reunion and made sure Tiger got an invitation in the mail, but he didn’t show. Grohman understands. “He’s still trying to be Tiger Woods,” he says. “There’s a time and place for things. There will be a day when he wants to come back to where it all began.”

  Even 10 years later, the loss of his father still exerts force and pull on his inner life. The anniversary of Earl’s death is a time when he can’t sleep, staying up all night with his memories. The wounds seem fresh. Tiger spent just 77 minutes on the ground in Kansas saying goodbye to Earl, before hurtling back into a destiny previously in progress. It’s nearly certain he hasn’t been back since. The sexton who runs the place says he’s never seen Woods visit, and staff at the small airport nearby say they haven’t seen him either. A book by a People magazine writer said Tiger visited once in 2007, around Mark Steinberg’s military intervention, but that report could not be confirmed. Maybe he sneaked in and out, but if not, one day perhaps he’ll walk across the field to the place where they left Earl’s ashes, between Maude and Miles, in the shade of a bush and near a big red rock. He’ll have to find the spot from memory because there is no headstone, even a decade after the funeral. Maybe he wants it private, or is simply unable to take such a final step, but whatever the reason, Tiger Woods never had one placed.

  He buried his father in an unmarked grave.

  * * *

  —

  The real work of his life—how to deal with having been Tiger Woods—will begin only once he accepts that his golfing career is finished. All driven people experience a reckoning at the end of their life’s work, but when that work feels incomplete, or somehow tainted, the regrets can fester with time. This reckoning is coming for Tiger, which worries his friend Michael Jordan, who knows more about the next 10 years of Tiger’s life than nearly anyone alive. It’s jarring to be dominant and then have it suddenly end. “I don’t know if he’s happy about that or sad about that,” Jordan says. “I think he’s tired. I think he really wishes he could retire, but he doesn’t know how to do it yet, and I don’t think he wants to leave it where it is right now. If he could win a major and walk away, he would, I think.”

  A few months ago, sitting in his office in Charlotte, Jordan picked up his phone and dialed Tiger’s number. It rang a few times and went to voicemail: I’m sorry, but the person you called has a voicemail box that has not been set up yet. He tried twice more, the phone rang five or six times, and then he smiled.

  “Playing video games,” he said.

  They texted in November, the day after a big group went out to dinner at Tiger’s restaurant. Tiger got drunk, and they all laughed and told stories, and Michael thought Tiger seemed relaxed, which made him hopeful. Tiger talked about his injuries a lot but not much about the future. “The thing is,” Jordan says, “I love him so much that I can’t tell him, ‘You’re not gonna be great again.’”

  The day after that, Tiger wrote him, and both men sounded like the stay-at-home dads they’ve become.

  TW: Thank you and your beautiful wife for coming. Need to do that more often. Thank the good lord for ice packs. I’m in heaven now. Bring babies next time.

  MJ: Haha. Any time my brother. Get some rest. We’ll bring the kids next time.

  TW: I’m in. After school next week one day when the kids don’t have soccer practice.

  Jordan talks carefully, with no bravado or swagger, trying to say something important and true and empathetic—maybe hoping his friend will read it?—without crowding Tiger or saying too much. Jordan struggled and flailed in the years after he quit basketball, feeling like he’d hard-wired himself with all of these urges that now worked against any hope of future happiness. For years, he just tried to pretend like he wasn’t lost. Time stretched out in front of him endlessly, and this same emptiness awaits Tiger.

  “What does he do every day?” Jordan asks.

  He’s quiet and serious.

  “I don’t know,” he says, answering his own question. “I haven’t the slightest idea. I do not know.”

  He worries that Tiger is so haunted by his public shaming that he obsesses over it, perhaps sitting up in the middle of the night reading all the things people write and say about him.

  “Rabbit Ears,” Michael calls him sometimes.

  He hears everything. For Tiger, this dwelling on old mistakes is a path to madness. Nothing can take him back to 2006 and give him a second chance. “That bothers him more than anything,” Jordan says. “It looms. It’s in his mind. It’s a ship he can’t right, and he’s never going to. What can you do? The thing is about T-Dub, he cannot erase. That’s what he really wants. He wants to erase the things that happened.”

  Slowly, year by year, Tiger’s name will not be spoken in the same way and with the same frequency. Without a new passion, Tiger just might sit down there in his enormous, empty mansion and slowly go insane. Jordan’s post-retirement salvation came because he and his longtime girlfriend, Yvette Prieto, got married. Now they have twins, and he’s created a life for himself, something to occupy his time and his thoughts. They are happy together, and more than once Jordan has told Tiger he needs to allow someone new into his circle, to build a new life with a new person and, along the way, find some new perspective about the journey that brought him here.

  “He has . . . ,” Jordan says, and he pauses, searching for the right word, “. . . no companion. He has to find that happiness within his life, that’s the thing that worries me. I don’t know if he can find that type of happiness. He’s gonna have to trust somebody.”

  * * *

  —

  Tiger is not totally alone, kept company by memories of the life he once knew and those moments when he is happiest: the time he spends with his daughter, Sam, 8, and his son, Charlie, 7. The best of Earl lives in the actions of his son; in fatherhood, Tiger has equaled and even surpassed his own dad. He is utterly devoted to his children. Every single person interviewed for this story says so. Sam and Charlie never met their grandfather, and they don’t remember Tiger as a dominant golfer, but they will grow up knowing that their father cares more about them than anything he does on the course.

  In the Bahamas, USA Today golf writer Steve DiMeglio saw them riding in a golf cart with Tiger and asked if they’d rather be their dad or soccer star Leo Messi.

  “Messi!” Sam said without missing a beat.

  “He’s playing,” Charlie explained.

  Tiger laughed and dramatically dropped his head.

  Then he joked, “Well, he’s right.”

  He and Elin have a better relationship now, and Tiger wishes he’d have worked to create this bond while they were still together. His friends talk of how much he regrets losing his marriage, especially in those moments when he and Elin are with the kids and he glimpses little flashes of the life he threw away. Now he shares custody, and when the children go back to their mom’s place and his big house falls quiet, he’s surrounded by people who work for him and trophies he won as a younger, more powerful man.

  There’s a clear view out the windows past the two swimming pools and hot tub, toward the four greens he had built, a practice facility for a game he’s almost finished playing. He’s got endless stretches of time now to stare and think. His old house near Orlando, the last place they all lived, stood in a cluster of trees across from the Isleworth driving range. He loved sunsets there, all of them together, his golf having finally created the family he craved as a boy. Elin and Charlie would sit in a cart and watch. Yogi, a labradoodle, would roll in the grass, sniffing around. Sam would hand him golf balls, and he’d hit punch shots for his border collie, Taz, to chase.

  The sun would set and they’d all walk together in
the shadows toward home.

  MAY 2016

  In Chicago, the Final Wait for a Cubs Win Mixes Joy and Sorrow

  A city has waited 108 years. Now it must wait one day more.

  CHICAGO, ILL.—Cubs fans awoke Wednesday to one last wait, with little to do before Game 7 but think, about themselves and their families, about the people who’ve come and gone during these 108 years of failure. Hundreds found themselves drawn to Wrigley Field, where workers were already breaking down the concessions and cleaning out the freezers. Some people said they didn’t even mean to come. They started off on a trip to the store and ended up standing in front of the stadium’s long brick wall facing Waveland Avenue. Many wrote chalk notes to the dead. Some dedicated messages. This one’s for you, Dad. Others wrote names. Dan Bird. Ben Bird. Eugene Hendershott. A man with a bright smile but melancholy eyes wrote the name of his late wife, Andrea Monhollen. They met four blocks from here, on Racine. She’s been gone six years.

  “Cancer,” John Motiejunas said.

  He looked around at the names, each one as special to some stranger as his wife’s name is to him. All these chalk ghosts longed to see a day like this one. Each name represented an unfulfilled dream. The big bright murals made the wall seem fun and festive from afar, but a closer look revealed life stripped of romanticism. “A lot of people waited their whole lives,” Motiejunas said. He took a picture of the wall and then left, walking through the light rain that had begun to fall.

  A little boy named Conley, not yet 3 years old, carried two big pieces of chalk while his grandmother, Maggie O’Connor, worked to keep him out of the street. The kid drew wherever he wanted, bouncing around. His grandma looked at him, without the baggage of the past century, and she laughed.

  “He’ll get used to them winning,” she said. Conley wrote “Go Cubs Go,” in the uncertain script of a toddler, then stopped strangers on the sidewalk to tell them about it. He asked one of them to draw with him, and after some squiggles, he stood back to admire his work.

  “A seahorse!” he said.

  * * *

  —

  I didn’t know exactly what to do while waiting on the final game of the World Series, so I woke up early on Wednesday and went to church. The priest at the cavernous, ornate Holy Name Cathedral didn’t mention the Cubs during the homily, but his talk about suffering and faith resonated with those who came to celebrate All Souls’ Day. Yes, Game 7 was played on the same day as the annual Catholic holiday to remember and celebrate the dead and pray for their safe passage from purgatory into heaven. You can’t make this stuff up.

  The hyperfocus of camera lenses will make the last 24 hours in Chicago seem like one big explosion of joy, but that’s not really true. The whole exercise has produced its own extremes. On one hand, people have been going wild, with Eddie Vedder and Bill Murray closing down one of those 5 a.m. dive bars on Division Street—closing it down together—and fans lighting off cherry bombs near Wrigley. Yet there’s also this palpable sadness. Nobody could really be sure how they’d feel when it all ended, whether they’d be full of joy, or grief, or both.

  The question felt personal to me. My wife’s grandfather, a decorated World War II veteran, who survived being named Bob Weinberg in a German prisoner of war camp, died in May. He grew up in Chicago and loved the Cubs, and as the season went on, my wife and I talked about how cruel it seemed for a man to live for 94 years, survive his bomber being shot down and being held captive, only to die five months before the World Series he longed to see. With him in mind, I reached out to a half-dozen area hospitals and to the team itself, looking for fans who were hanging on, hoping to find someone who might beat Bob’s odds. The Cubs connected me with a woman named Ginny Iversen. She listened to the games on the radio religiously, even at 93, and loved to tell people she shared a birthday with Andre Dawson.

  She never really grew up, wearing a tiara and feather boa to her 90th birthday and trying to do one of those college girl no-hands shots on her 92nd birthday—her kids loved to pull out photos of her with an entire shot glass in her mouth. Somewhat recently, an equally old male suitor gave her a diamond ring, which he then forgot about, which of course led to him buying her a second ring. She seemed hilarious to me, but her family didn’t think she was up for a stranger to visit. I disengaged and didn’t think about her much until yesterday.

  At the Wrigley Field memorial wall, I saw a woman writing on the metal gates to the bleachers themselves, across the street from Murphy’s. Mary Beth Talhami (I’d learn her name later) finished her message and stood back to admire it: “Mom, thank you for teaching us to believe in ourselves, love, and the Cubs! Enjoy your view from the ultimate skybox!”

  I took a picture of her, close enough to overhear her conversation with another stranger to her left. Mary Beth talked about her mom and how ESPN had contacted the family. The dots connected in my head. The hair stood up on my arm.

  “That was me,” I said.

  She told me her mother was Ginny Iversen and then, starting to shake and cry, she told me the news. Her mom died between Games 2 and 3.

  * * *

  —

  Twenty miles northwest, cars parked in groups along the winding paths of the All Saints Cemetery. An hour remained until the 5 p.m. closing time. It’s a Catholic burial ground, out in the middle-class suburbs, and there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of Cubs flags and hats and license plates and signs. It’s one of many places around Chicago this past week where the conflicting ideas of joy and pain leave the realm of the psychological and become attached to action. People come here for many reasons, to say a little prayer, or talk to someone, to themselves, or to believe that their loved one knows what is happening tonight. Yesterday, a middle-aged woman named Maureen stood for the longest time at a grave not far away. A sign read BELIEVE. Maureen touched her hand to the Cubs logo on her chest and smiled, looking back at the ground.

  “My son,” she said.

  Then she pointed across the rolling hill to the most famous grave in the cemetery, which is where she was headed next, to pay respects to Harry Caray before going to watch the game. His stone has green apples on top, an inside joke referencing a quote about the Cubs one day making it to a World Series just as surely as God made green apples.

  A man stood at the grave, unloading five more crates of apples, arranging them in a half-moon. One of the cemetery custodians, named Don, helped him. Some women, there to visit other graves in the area, did too. I walked up, and Don grinned at me and introduced his friend, Coley Newell, who happened to be Harry Caray’s son-in-law. They had some times. The night the Bulls first won a title, he and Harry watched the game at Gibsons Steakhouse. Harry pulled him down to Division Street, lined with bars, and the crowd went berserk and mobbed them. Cops had to pull Harry up on horseback to ride him to safety. “He was the best father-in-law ever,” Newell said. “He got me in more friggin’ trouble.”

  Newell pointed at a spot he’d cleared among the apples.

  “This is where the radio is going.”

  One of the women did a double-take.

  “You’re gonna broadcast the game?” she asked.

  Newell nodded. He pulled out and switched on the radio—tuned to the local broadcast so Harry “wouldn’t have to listen to Joe Buck”—and covered it with a plastic carton. He snaked the antennae through a hole he’d cut, then covered it with duct tape to keep out the rain.

  “There’s the real mojo,” Don said.

  “Yes, it is,” Newell said.

  He’s done this before every World Series game, turned on the radio and let it play once the place closed. With the pregame show already started, he listened to the announcers debate Corey Kluber and the Cubs’ ability to hit him.

  Newell kneeled down and said a prayer.

  Then he drove back toward the city to watch the game. The custodians locked the fence by the road, and near the back of the c
emetery, a radio at the foot of Harry Caray’s grave played the national anthem and the lineups and the first pitch.

  Nobody but the dead were around to hear.

  * * *

  —

  Mary Beth Talhami got to her local bar just as the game began. They love her at a place called Wildwood Tavern, in the suburb of Niles, and the owners saved a barstool for her. Her friends hugged her and told her that her mother was up there helping the Cubs tonight. It’s been six days since Ginny Iversen died, taking her last breath wrapped in a Cubs blanket she loved. The baseball has kept Mary Beth distracted; she hasn’t even bought a dress for the funeral. People from the neighborhood filled the bar, which served steaks and cold beers, and when the Cubs got their first out of the game, Mary Beth grinned.

  “Twenty-six to go,” she said.

  The Cubs looked dominant, a repeat of the Game 6 performance, and for the first time, she allowed herself to feel confident and to consider a life after this season. When the Cubs took a 4–1 lead, her lip began to quiver. A friend hugged her, and she started to cry, sitting in this bar, wearing her mom’s Cubs jacket, waving a plastic Cubs flag that had been in her mom’s room, drying her eyes with a Cubs rally towel someone brought her mom the week before she died. Mary Beth stood up and walked outside. A friend named Sarah watched her leave, concerned. Some of Mary Beth’s friends worry that a reckoning is coming soon and that the end of this season, win or lose, might knock her off course.

  “It’s happening,” Sarah said.

  Mary Beth returned and still struggled to keep away the tears.

  “It’s real,” she said. “I think her dying is finally setting in.”