(in)Fidelity: The Narrative Rationality of Tiger Woods

The story of Tiger Woods is a grand drama. There are heroic feats, like the time he came back from the brink of defeat in the eleventh hour at 1996 U.S. Amateur, the time he chipped-in at the 2005 Masters late on Sunday before going on to win – a moment later turned into a Nike commercial (Halem, 2009) – and the time he won the 2008 U.S. Open with torn ligaments and a fracture in his leg (Bamberger, 2020; Benedict & Keteyian, 2019). Such moments have appeared with regularity in his story, superhuman accomplishments of mind and body. Yet, there are also embarrassing lows, like a sex scandal in 2009 and a DUI arrest in 2017, the former leading to a massive public fallout and his divorce, the latter accompanied by police footage and a mugshot that depicted Tiger as a lost and broken man. More recently, in February 2021 Tiger experienced another setback after a car accident left his legs badly injured. His story may not be finished, but the continuation of his competitive playing career is in serious doubt. Nonetheless, even if his playing days are over, he has already scaled to mythic proportions.

As an immensely famous and controversial figure who transformed the culture of a sport, and as one who is currently in the middle of a crossroads moment of his life and career, Tiger Woods warrants scholarly attention. In what follows, Fisher’s (1984) narrative paradigm is applied to the story of Tiger Woods, asking, what is the narrative rationality of Tiger Woods? To answer this question, the narrative rationality of Tiger Woods as a cultural text is assessed and interpreted. Factoring into the overall picture are elements of public moral argument, the mythic hero, and the emphasis of ends over means. First, it is important to explain the narrative paradigm and to justify and construct Tiger Woods as a narrative text.

Narrative Paradigm

The narrative paradigm, created by Walter Fisher, is a framework that Fisher articulated over several works (e.g., Fisher, 1984, 1987), its core argument being that humans are primarily storytelling animals and that the world reveals itself to us through stories. Fisher places the narrative paradigm alongside the rational worldview, not meant to replace it but instead to absorb. This distinction becomes clear when the assumptions of the narrative paradigm are presented in comparison with the rational worldview. In the following sentences, Fisher’s (1987) five assumptions for the narrative world paradigm appear alongside their rational worldview counterpoints (in parentheses). First, in the narrative paradigm, humans are defined as storytelling animals (in the rational worldview, humans are rational beings). Second, humans make decisions based on good reason (humans make decisions based on good arguments). Third, good reasons are based on contextual information such as biography, character, history, and culture (good arguments are based on formal logic). Fourth, what counts as rational in the narrative paradigm is when a story is both internally consistent and reflective of lived experience (what counts as rational in the rational worldview is whatever is consistent with formal logic). Finally, humans experience the world as series of stories and from those stories choose how to live life (the world can be understood as a system of logical relationships). Fisher acknowledges both perspectives but considers narratives to be particularly relevant to the human experience.

For the purposes of definition, narratives, or stories, are better understood as narration, which Fisher (1987) defines as any sequence of symbols that bear meaning for an audience and West and Turner (2018) call any account to which listeners can attach meaning. Narration captures the ongoing, always unfolding, and unending nature of human communication, and the definition is broad, subsuming all forms of communication, which is exactly Fisher's point: we are storytelling animals who naturally perceive the world through stories. The broadness of the definition also allows for the framework to be applied as an analytical tool to a diverse body of texts. For example, the life of Tiger Woods can be captured narratively because of how well-documented it has been in books, on television, on YouTube, etc. Furthermore, his impact has been significant to his sport and the culture around him, meaning that he bears meaning for audiences. His documented life and the public's response to it is narration worthy of critical study.

One way to study a narrative text is to examine its narrative rationality, which is done by taking a critical measure of its coherence and fidelity (West & Turner, 2018). Narrative rationality, as a combination of coherence and fidelity, is the set of implicit and explicit patterns present in the narrative that supply meaning for audiences. Coherence refers to internal consistency of a narrative's structure, material, and its characterological. A story has structural coherence if it is organizationally sound and makes sense as a whole. If parts of the story contradict each other, or the parts added up are jumbled and confusing, the story does not have structural coherence. Material coherence is based on how congruent a story is with other related stories. Audiences expect stories to fit into their genre and follows rules and patterns based on prior precedent. Finally, characterological coherence is based on whether or not the characters in the story are accepted as believable. Audiences expect established characters to act in ways that are consistent with what is already known about them or other similar characters. For example, if through perseverance a character builds the reputation of having grit, it would be believable for that character to overcome difficult obstacles and even accomplish heroic feats (e.g., like in Rocky). Altogether, the coherence of a narrative is based on the quality of its structure, the rendering of its material, and the portrayal of its characters.

Fidelity, the other component of narrative rationality, refers to the story's credibility (West & Turner, 2018). The story itself does not need to be factual but should demonstrate patterns of reasoning that reflect lived experience and follow the logic of good reasons. According to Fisher (1978), the logic of good reasons, which can be applied to “any given instance” (p. 376) of rhetorical discourse, addresses the need in rhetorical scholarship for a way to systematically identify values in a text while also assessing the implications of those values for an audience. To that end, Fisher defines both “logic” and “good reasons” and also explains how to apply them to a text. First, logic is not in reference to formal logic, but instead to the reasoning that is present in the text and the values that are communicated through the text. Good reasons constitute a full, contextualized consideration of whether an audience should accept or adhere to the values fostered by a narrative text. Fisher (1978) adds that an evaluation of good reasons accounts for how the reasoning in the narrative warrants, authorizes, sanctions, and/or justifies certain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, and he provides a series of 10 questions to direct the evaluation (e.g., what patterns of reasoning exist in the narrative? What are the implicit and explicit values? And, are those values the basis for ideal human conduct?). These questions – questions of “fact, relevance, consequence, and consistency” (p. 380) – encourage a hermeneutic and contextualized study of the narrative, looking at how it reflects society and what that means. Ultimately, does the narrative provide “a sense of what is good as well as what is reasonable” (p. 383) and should the narrative be accepted or rejected?

In fact, narratives are inherently moral constructs in which matters of how people should be treated and behave are demonstrated, challenged, and transformed (Fisher, 1984). For example, Schrader’s (2019) article on the play, Hamilton, highlights it as an example of public moral argument, a concept discussed by Fisher (1984) as any matter of controversy or debate that enters into public-social knowledge (typically something that engages multiple fields and interest areas) and that raises questions about how people should behave and treated along with other relevant moral issues. Fisher adds that unlike arguments in specialized fields where the participants are mostly just the experts in the field, public moral argument is something that becomes available, accessible, and intriguing to the general public as well. For example, Schrader's article argues that Hamilton's rendering of an old story told in a contemporary manner through its diverse cast of minority actors playing white characters and the hip hop music used to tell the story helps audiences see the difference between America-then and America-now. Though Hamilton lived in a prior era and was one of America's lesser-known founding fathers, through the play his story became relevant to modern audiences and brought attention to contemporary issues like immigration, gender relations, and race. The emergence of Tigermania on the world golf scene in the 1990s also put a spotlight on race, and the Tiger Woods Foundation has made golf more accessible to minorities and women (Bamberger, 2020; Benedict & Keteyian, 2019). However, Tiger's story also includes scandal, persistent injury, questions about his training methods, criticisms of his character (Bamberger, 2020; Benedict & Keteyian, 2019). Thus, the story of Tiger Woods, too, provides a location for public moral argument.

In addition, Tiger's documented life can be considered sports folklore, a concept described by Voolaid and Laineste (2013) as a type of “newslore,” or knowledge that is distributed through daily news and commentary. There are three categories of people that create and sustain sports folklore: (1) the primary actors such as athletes, coaches, and specialists, (2) fans and audience members, and (3) laypeople. According to Voolaid and Laineste, not every piece of sports folklore reaches the level of the laypeople, but large sporting events like the Olympics and scandals represent “a common set of sports narratives that are known equally well by fans and laymen” (p. 11). The story of Tiger Woods (at least, in part), has reached the level of the laypeople. With such influence, it is important to ask, what patterns exist in his narrative? What values? And how can Tiger Woods be described in terms of narrative rationality?

One way to address these questions is to analyze the coherence and fidelity of Tiger Woods and critiques his story using the logic of good reasons. Drawing from source material – particularly the two most up-to-date and extensive biographies on his life, Bamberger’s (2020) theatrical “The Second Life of Tiger Woods” and Benedict and Keteyian’s (2019) comprehensive and thorough “Tiger Woods,” along recent news articles on the car accident that injured his legs – the current article constructs Tiger's documented life as a narrative text and studies it as such. It should be noted that Tiger did not participate in the production of the two abovementioned biographies and, in fact, issued a statement against the veracity of Benedict and Keteyian's book (“Tiger Woods; Handlers Claim ‘Egregious; Errors in New Woods Biography,” 2018), the two biographies do corroborate each other on many details and are congruent with other public narratives about Tiger Woods such as Haney’s (2012) “The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods” and Sampson's (2019) “Roaring Back: The Fall and Rise of Tiger Woods.” Having set the stage, what follows is a reconstruction of Tiger Woods as a narrative text based on the source material mentioned above.

Tiger Woods

Eldrick Tont Woods, better known as Tiger, made his first television appearance “as a two-year-old, hitting balls on the Mike Douglas Show, dwarfed by his father, by Mike Douglas, by Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart” (Bamberger, 2020, p. 8). He was made for TV from the very beginning, destined to be a golfing phenom. His father, Earl, a Green Beret who served two tours of duty in the Vietnam War, gave Eldrick the nickname “Tiger” in honor of a “comrade whom Earl often credited with saving his life on two occasions” (Benedict & Keteyian, 2019, p. 17). Earl, also a golf fanatic, taught Tiger the game before he could walk, while Tiger's mother, Kultida, a Thai woman Earl met when stationed overseas, helped impart a killer's instinct in the child: “In sport,” she said, “you have to go for the throat … if all friendly, they come back and beat your ass. Take their heart” (p. 33). Quickly, Tiger's prodigious talent became apparent and from that point he spent “all his life” in front of cameras (Bamberger, p. 2).

When it comes to success in golf, for Tiger it seems to have been an inevitability. From early on, he mastered the game and became a force. He won junior and amateur tournaments at a fast pace, and was “the first player since Bobby Jones to win USGA titles in six consecutive years as an amateur” (Bamberger, 2020, p. 24). Rumblings of something big preceded his entrance onto the world stage and when Tiger finally turned professional at age 20, he did not disappoint. In the early and middle parts of his professional career especially, he was “consistently, reliably, and relentlessly great” (p. 36). In raw numbers, he ultimately won 82 PGA Tour events, tied for first all-time with Sam Snead, and 15 major championships, second only to Jack Nicklaus. He is also the only player in the modern era to have won all four major championships in succession, a feat that came to be known as the Tiger Slam, which he accomplished by winning the U.S. Open, The Open Championship, and PGA Championship in 2000 followed by the Masters in 2001, wearing what would become his signature red shirt and black pants in each of the final rounds.

In addition to his greatness as a golfer, Tiger's cultural impact is just as monumental. As a black and Asian man in a predominantly white sport he brought golf “to people who did not have a passport to it” (Bamberger, 2020, p. 6). He knew the difficulties firsthand, facing discrimination as a junior golfer. In the Nike commercial that introduces Tiger to the world, a series of captions narrate a highlight package listing off his precocious accomplishments, leading to the statement: “There are still courses in the U.S. I am not allowed to play because of the color of my skin” (Maximus, 2017, 0:48–0:52). Accordingly, he used his fame to afford opportunities to previously ignored communities. The Tiger Woods Foundation does everything from holding golf clinics for underprivileged children to building facilities and funding programs for STEM-related education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) for the underprivileged (Benedict & Keteyian, 2019).

However, there was another side to Tiger hidden from the public. According to Bamberger (2020), “Tiger's reputation was so Buick, so AT&T, so clean” (p. 31) but his humor was bathroom and blue. Bamberger notes that Tiger is a good actor: “with a script in hand, he can do it all. He can be funny, serious, warm, contemplative, mischievous” (p. 1), but Tiger was known to have icy relationships with other golfers like Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman, and was often aloof with people who were close to him: “You could round up three hundred [who worked with and around him] and not find two people who could say they had anything like an intimate relationship with him, or really knew him at all” (Bamberger, 2020, p. 61).

However, and both on and off the golf course, Tiger compartmentalizes. He is adept at tuning out distraction, becoming calm, focused, being decisive, and moving on without dwelling in the past. For golf, that mentality works. Bamberger writes, “Tiger's professional greatness has always been rooted in his otherworldly ability to be in control. Of his situation, his swing, his body. His thinking” (p. 36). He also writes, “No matter how bad his situation is, his thoughts are settled by the time he plays his shot. It's an unusual mind that can do that again and again” (p. 4). Compartmentalizing has been a winning formula for him in golf, but outside the ropes it has its problems. His public image and private life were going in different and incompatible directions. He was balancing two discordant identities.

Everything unraveled after a strange domestic incident on Thanksgiving of 2009. Tiger, seemingly fleeing from his wife after she found out about his extramarital affairs, crashed his vehicle into a fire hydrant (Bamberger, 2020). He was not injured physically, but his reputation took a massive hit. In the following days, stories of his numerous affairs dominated the news cycle. According to Bamberger, Tiger had already been caught by the press prior to the Thanksgiving incident and had been fighting privately to keep the story from breaking, but now the floodgates were open. As alleged mistresses came forward to tell their side of the story, the total number ballooned into double-digits.

Late night hosts and Saturday Night Live lampooned Tiger's folly. He was scolded by golf dignitaries. Golf legend, Tom Watson, told a reporter, “[Tiger] needs to clean up his act” (Bamberger, 2020, p. 43). Sponsors dropped him. After a scripted apology at an awkward press conference, he took a break from competition, went to an addiction facility that specialized in sex addiction, and got divorced. What followed was one of the longest dry spells of his career, over two years without a win. It was uncertain if he would ever again return to form.

In 2012, he did, winning five PGA Tour events and regaining first position in the Official World Golf Rankings, effectively reclaiming his identity (Bamberger, 2020). However, it was short-lived. Quickly following his regained success, Tiger became increasingly plagued by injuries and had to sideline himself for long stretches of time. In one iconic moment, he fell to his knees in pain after hitting a shot at Liberty National before withdrawing from the tournament. Ultimately, Tiger underwent a series of back operations and missed the Masters tournament twice in a row. According to Bamberger, in 2016, Tiger reportedly told another player that his competitive playing days were likely over. However, in 2017, he underwent a spinal fusion operation and afterwards posted a promising message on his website: “I haven't felt this good in years” (Bamberger, p. 102). There was hope for another comeback.

But another stumble, less than a week later, when Tiger was arrested after being found asleep in his car on the side of the road. It was the small hours of the morning on Memorial Day weekend, and there was minor damage to his vehicle including a couple of flat tires. The police footage of the arrest shows that Tiger is clearly inebriated, dazed, confused, and altogether lost. The footage spans from the roadside sobriety check to his inside his holding cell. “All his life” he has been in front of cameras (Bamberger, 2020, p. 2). Tiger was calm throughout and did not resist, and it was not alcohol in his system, instead, a cocktail of pain and sleep medication, including Vicodin, THC, and Ambien (p. 102). In the hours after his arrest, the look on Tiger's face – you can see in the mugshot – was a man who was on the bottom but not broken. There was acceptance and resignation in his eyes. Bamberger writes, the “second life of Tiger Woods had begun” (p. 108).

It began with a change of character. In lieu of a scripted apology at an awkward press conference, the change was communicated organically as people started to notice Tiger become “far more patient and open” (Bamberger, 2020, p. 139). His interactions with fans, the media, and his fellow players seemed to be more genuine and his overall demeanor was more relaxed. His legal matters regarding the arrest were resolved in the straightforward manner of first offenses. He could put them in the rearview mirror as long as he entered a diversion program, did a year of probation, and paid a fine (Bamberger, 2020). Tiger, with a healed back and a new perspective, looked grateful to have another chance. He was kinder and more appreciative, and it is at this point that Benedict and Keteyian’s (2019) biography ends, with the authors concluding

Tiger's greatest victory was not in golf but rather in his journey back into the light and, for the first time in years, in life. A changed man, he stood poised to show his children – and a fresh generation of golf pros and fans – just what a living legend looks like. (p. 404)

Tiger was poised (and golf fans were excited) for a comeback on the course, and Bamberger’s (2020) account carries further into the next spectacular chapter of Tiger's journey.

First, there was a hill to climb. Tiger's time away put him on the wrong end of the Official World Golf Rankings. In the winter of 2017, “there were 1,198 players in the world [ranked] better than Tiger” (Bamberger, 2020, p. 162). It had been a long time since he had played a competitive round, and although there was optimism there was still uncertainty. His first year back, in 2018, Tiger performed well and seemed unbothered by his back but did not win. In 2019, the positive trend continued and he finally broke through with a victory, the 2019 Tour Championship, five years after his last victory (Bamberger, 2020).

The reaction was euphoric. On the television footage, Tiger, with victory in hand, walked down the final fairway swarmed by an army of fans. What happened next was truly “the story of both golfer and the human being” coming together (p. Bamberger, 2020, p. 128). Tiger won the Masters in 2019 with play that was brilliant and savvy. He had full control of his game, his mind, his body, and the scene after he holed out the final putt was raucous and emotional with waves of applause and chants. A boisterous Tiger embraced the members of his family, his son and daughter, his mother, his girlfriend, the members of his team. Earl had died years earlier, but the hug Tiger shared with his mother after the 2019 Masters victory was a mirror image of one he shared with his father after his victory in the 1997 Masters. The story had come full circle. A few months later, Tiger won again, marking his 82^nd PGA Tour victory, tying him for first all-time with Sam Snead (Bamberger, 2020), and it is at this point where Bamberger's biography ends.

Something important to note is that in the time after these two books were published, Tiger underwent another back operation (Cyrgalis, 2021). Furthermore, in February 2021, Tiger's legs were severely injured in a single-vehicle car accident in Los Angeles. After an investigation into the matter, the police department classified the accident as such, an accident, and declined to bring charges against Tiger relating to either reckless or impaired driving (Schrotenboer, 2021). Nonetheless, due to his injuries, Tiger has not returned to professional golf since the accident and his future in competitive golf is uncertain. Regardless, his impact in the world of golf and sports folklore to this point is already extensive. The following section examines the narrative of Tiger Woods to this point by taking a critical look at its narrative rationality.

The Narrative Rationality of Tiger Woods

Eldrick Tont Woods has never not been Tiger Woods, and Tiger has played for the cameras his entire life. While dominating his sport and impacting the culture around him, Tiger has been on television since he could walk and talk. The overriding narrative of Tiger at the onset was him as an example of superhuman perfection and clean-cut excellence, which was later undermined by injuries, scandals, and questions of integrity, but his ability to work through adversary and overcome obstacles has remained reliable. Alongside his dominance on the golf course, Tiger has shown patterns of resilience. In competition he has made numerous comebacks from stroke deficits, injury, swing changes, and major life events. In the latter part of his career, he seems to have made a personality change, too, warming up to his fellow competitors and the media. His injuries throughout life, physical and otherwise, may largely have been self-inflicted, but he always seems to do the work needed to return to form. Thus, in Tiger, we see virtuous traits like focus, persistence, determination, and the unwillingness to concede – and all of these things connected to winning golf tournaments, holding trophies, and wearing green jackets. This line of reasoning is sold to the public in packages of inspiration and motivation, Tiger acting as the consummate celebrity, a cultural phenomenon fulfilling the need for aspiration (Kerrigan et al., 2011; O’Guinn, 1991).

Accordingly, regular break downs of body and image – which, potentially could be seen as inconsistencies in characterological coherence – were instead employed in the service of resilience and transformation. For example, two Nike advertisements following the sex scandal helped re-story the event as a narrative of redemption. The first one, a television commercial shot in black and white (CBS, 2010), showed a close-up of Tiger's somber but contemplative face while Earl's superimposed voice gives him a lecture about learning from his mistakes. Never mind the fact that Earl was already dead by the time of the scandal and that the audio on the commercial was old and taken from another context, and also never mind the fact that Earl himself was reportedly a womanizer (Bamberger, 2020; Benedict & Keteyian, 2019), as Lewis (1987) points, narratives need not be factually true as long as they are true-to-life. Audiences could easily imagine Earl saying something like that to Tiger in response to the scandal. The second Nike advertisement that re-purposed Tiger's sex scandal as a story of redemption was a print advertisement that appeared after Tiger regained his supremacy on the course, showing a picture of Tiger reading a putt with a caption that said, “Winning takes care of everything” (“Nike’s Tiger Woods ad draws critics,” 2013). The obvious implication is that now that Tiger had reclaimed his dominance in golf audiences could forgive his transgressions.

The repurposing ultimately worked as Tiger did manage to regain his image, something that can be explained through a study by Finsterwalder et al., (2017) on forgiveness of celebrities following transgressions. According to the study, a transgression can sometimes humanize a celebrity, giving them a temporary appearance of being ordinary and relatable, and making them “easier to forgive” (p. 8). The authors explain that the para-social relationships audiences form with celebrities leads them to forgive the way they would a friend or family member. Contingent upon the transgression “not being associated with the profession” (p. 13), the celebrity who makes a sincere apology and demonstrates remorse can be forgiven, especially if the celebrity makes a “return to what made them famous” (p. 14). Tiger's transgression was unrelated to golf and though his public apology fell short he did return to his reign at the top of the golf world.

However, mounting injuries and increasing physical decline do call into question the characterological coherence of Tiger Woods. At the end of the day, he is not superhuman and a point will come – if it has not already – when he will no longer be able to win golf tournaments. When this occurs, resilience, if it is to persist in the story, will have to take another form. Furthermore, there are other cracks in the coherence of the narrative. Digging further into the more well-guarded corners of Tiger's life, Benedict and Keteyian (2019) and Bamberger (2020) both report on Tiger's questionable training methods wherein, and at the guidance of Earl and Kultida, Tiger's mental and physical training became increasingly singularly focused, intense, and militaristic, something that has been attributed to his cold way of interacting with others and also something that is thought to have caused and amplified some of his injuries. The two biographies also comment on his potential connection to performance enhancing drugs and procedures. Benedict and Keteyian, and Bamberger, are both clear that there is no direct evidence of Tiger using banned performance enhancing methods, but that he can be linked to athletes and doctors who have been implicated in such scandals. All of this to say, questions about the integrity of his character and methods have followed Tiger around and, thus far, he has answered such criticism by winning golf tournaments, emphasizing the ends over means. However, if it ever is revealed that he did use banned performance enhancing methods the transgression would then be directly associated with his profession and the ends themselves would be called into question, making him less forgivable and less immune to criticism.

Overall, Tiger's story is one in which the pursuit of something impossible – superhuman excellency and perfection – becomes the driving force and predominant image to be maintained seemingly to the point of self-destruction. Looked at this way, Tiger can be considered a mythic hero. Myth, according to Wellek and Warren (1956), is something that offers “pedagogic images of the nature of and destiny of man” (p. 119), something relatable, widely accepted (Lewis, 1987), but something that also exists on the “feather line between fantasy and reality” (Bruner, 1959, p. 279). Myths can be persuasive but they can also be misleading. Likewise, a hero – somebody who leaves home on a journey, ventures into an unknown world, overcomes challenges, and brings back the spoils of their victories to share with their community (Voolaid & Laineste, 2013) – is aspirational but more realistic in movies, particularly American Westerns.

For example, Erisman (2000) examined the concept of mythic heroes in the films of Clint Eastwood. In these films, the hero is somebody who is “isolated and often violent, at times vulnerable in his fallibility” but someone who strives forward steadily (p. 129). Likewise, Samajdar (2018) looked at mythic heroes in Westerns and superhero films, noting that the hero in these films, typically “tall and silent” (p. 5) and symbolizing masculinity and strength (p. 6), oftentimes must be made to become vulnerable as they go through “rituals of violation and reconstruction” all in front of the camera “leading to the final showdown” (p. 6) and victory.

Tiger's story bears resemblance to the heroes in these films. Both biographies (Bamberger, 2020; Benedict & Keteyian, 2019) note his aloof and private nature paired with his strength and domination in the game. Furthermore, his breakdown in image, body, and morals played out before the public to see, set the stage for what perhaps was his final showdown, an improbable victory at the 2019 Masters. His story may not be complete, but even if it is, it has already scaled to mythic proportions.

It is not uncommon for athletes in sports folklore to rise to mythic levels of perception. For example, Voolaid and Laineste (2013) explore the image of the Olympic athlete as mythic hero, looking specifically at the case of the Estonian skier, Andrus Veerpalu (Voolaid & Laineste). Veerpalu, a gold medal skier, was suspended from competition in 2011 for failing a drug test for a banned performance enhancing substance. Veerpalu fought the suspension on the grounds that the failed drug test was a false positive, and ultimately won his appeal, but the interesting thing that Voolaid and Laineste point out is that Veerpalu enjoyed high levels of fan support on social media during the ordeal and that their support nearly paralleled religious levels of devotion. The authors write,

there were people who believed in Veerpalu's innocence, and other who did not; besides them, there were those who showed their superiority towards the entire discussion. What was most striking about the particular discussion was that the doping case activated a quasi-religious movement, which was built around the belief that the athlete was sacred, and he must not have been attacked or accused in any way. (p. 31)

Athletes that are looked upon as mythic heroes are perceived as set apart from the rest of the population. Veerpalu is not a perfect analog to Tiger, but both can be seen as mythic heroes, and Tiger, the man who undergoes breakdowns in his image and body but puts on red on Sundays and becomes superhuman is narratively rational as a mythic hero. The duplicity in his character gives him something to overcome. As long as he redeems himself each time he falls the hero is kept alive and the audience is satisfied.

An important question, though, is how does the narrative of Tiger Woods stack up against the logic of good reasons? The bottom line item for the logic of good reasons is whether or not the narrative provides a basis for ideal human conduct, thus, it may be the case that what is narratively rational for one type of narrative, like that of the mythic hero, is nonetheless dysfunctional or impractical for common society.

Tiger Woods and the Logic of Good Reasons

Public narratives often include fantasies that serve cohesive functions and help shape group consciousness (Borman, 1985). For example, Marian-Arnat (2020) looks at the social function of conspiracy theories, which, it is argued, help individuals create and build community and generate social reality despite being mythological and counterfactual. Given how persuasive and influential narratives can be, Fisher (1978) emphasizes the importance of assessing narratives for their logic and reasons to “insure people are conscious of the values they adhere to and would promote” (p. 383). To answer to the call of the logic of good reasons, the series of ten questions presented above (Fisher, 1978, p. 370–380) must be addressed and considered in full. The opening questions for the logic of good reasons ask about the veracity of the narrative: are the statements that claim to factual in the narrative really factual? And, have any relevant facts been omitted from the narrative or distorted in its telling? As noted above, Tiger officially refuted Benedict and Keteyian’s (2019) biography (“Tiger Woods’s Handlers Claim ‘Egregious’ Errors in New Woods Biography,” 2018) and Bamberger (2020) is candid about Tiger's unwillingness to endorse his work, yet the two biographies tell a consistent story about what is known of Tiger's life, and these two books also compare well to other public narratives on Tiger (e.g., Haney’s (2012) “The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods” and Sampson's (Sampson, 2019) “Roaring Back: The Fall and Rise of Tiger Woods”).

The next set of questions address the patterns of reasoning in the narrative and its significance: what are the lines of reasoning that are present? How relevant are the arguments in the story to any decision the listener may make? And, what, if anything, is relevant to the audience? Within some of the patterns of Tiger's narrative there are virtuous examples of living, such as how his success at golf is preceded by commitment and an ability to focus, and how it has been sustained by persistence and resilience, yet his story is also cautionary in how it shows the price to be paid (e.g., injuries and scandal) for putting the ends ahead of means. Nonetheless, and good, bad, or indifferent, there is a public demand for Tiger. The source material to draw from on Tiger's life is ample, comprehensive, and thorough.

The final sequence of questions for the logic of good reasons addresses values in the narrative (West & Turner, 2018). What are the implicit and explicit values communicated through the narrative? Can they be confirmed in lived experience? And, what would be the result of adhering to those values? Ultimately, would they provide a basis for ideal human conduct? This is the juncture between narrative rationality and public moral argument, and parallels can be drawn between the story of Tiger Woods and the rhetoric of President Reagan. Reagan enjoyed high levels of personal support despite large amounts of criticism of his policies was due to his ability to communicate and embody the mythic history of America's greatness (Lewis, 1987). Lewis notes that Reagan's rhetoric artfully dodged criticism of his policies by shifting the focus to the goals of those policies instead of their practicalities, goals that spoke to the American dream and American spirit. In this way, Reagan emphasized the ends over the means, which resulted, according to Lewis, in a lowering of epistemological standards to the point where the stating of the goal became equivalent to achieving it and any opposition to the pragmatics of the goal could be transformed rhetorically into opposition to the American dream. Tiger also embodies America's mythic greatness through his diverse makeup and heroic achievements on the golf course, perhaps allowing him to skirt criticism targeted at his methods. As long as he takes care of the ends, the means are overshadowed.

On the surface, Tiger represents values like persistence, determination, and resilience, but underneath is the implication that the ends can justify the means. Thus, there is mismatch and distortion (but a false equivalency) between what is communicated in the Tiger Woods narrative and actual lived experience, similar to the mismatch, distortion, and false equivalency in President Reagan's rhetoric. Hence, unless you are forging identification between an audience and a heroic mythology (or, you yourself are a mythic hero), adhering to the explicit and implicit values in these narratives may not yield any practical or social success. However, the Tiger Woods narrative does contain some value. In fact, an analysis of Tiger Woods can draw a parallel to Schrader’s (2019) study of Hamilton, where Schrader makes the point that the diverse minority cast in Hamilton who play white historical figures shows audiences the difference between America-then and America-now. Like the actors in Hamilton, Tiger is and has always been an outsider in his sport, but his domination in that sport has helped form a bridge between golf-then and golf-now. His greatest impact perhaps has been through the work in his foundation, where he has opened up the sport to more people including minorities and women and has provided funding and resources for education in underprivileged communities (Bamberger, 2020; Benedict & Keteyian, 2019).

Conclusion

This article applied the narrative paradigm to the life of Tiger Woods, viewing his story as public moral argument and asking what patterns exist in his narrative? What values? And how can the narrative of Tiger Woods be described in terms of narrative rationality? Tiger's documented life was considered a narrative text worthy of study due to its impact to the world of golf and beyond. Tiger's story bears meaning for golfers, golf fans, and followers of sports folklore, but his story has also made its way into popular culture. Furthermore, Tiger represents something of the American spirit. Looked at as a mythic hero, Tiger represents both fantasy and reality. His ability to consistently redeem himself is aspirational, however, calling into question the logic of good reasons. Implicit in his story is the idea that ends can sometimes justify the means.