INTERVIEW BY LORNE RUBENSTEIN
TIME  | DECEMBER 2015

TIME: What’s it like when you contemplate the possibility that you’re not going to be able to play again?
TIGER WOODS: Anyone I’ve ever talked to who has had procedures like I’ve had, they say the same thing: you don’t know. With a joint, you know. With a nerve, you just don’t know. I’ve talked to Peyton [Manning] about his neck and what he’s going through. It’s tough as athletes, when you just don’t know. The most important thing, though, is that I get to have a life with my kids. That’s more important than golf. I’ve come to realize that now.

TIME: You may not have realized that a few years ago?
One, the kids were still young, they weren’t into as many things. Prior to that, when I didn’t have kids, it would never enter my mind. Are you kidding me? What am I going to do, go bass fishing? No. But now to watch my kids and play sports and to grow up and participate, and even teach them how to become better, oh my God, it gives me so much joy. I can’t imagine not being able to do that as I get older.

TIME: That’s more important than winning a golf tournament?
WOODS: Absolutely. No doubt. My kids are more important to me than anything else in the world.

TIME: What do you have to prove?
WOODS: I’ve done a lot more in the game than I ever thought I could. And to be in my 30s, and to have done this much? I never would have foreseen that.

TIME: You won 14 majors by the time you were 32.
WOODS: I know. It’s frightening. I’ve had a good run.

TIME: How do you handle the speculation about you?
WOODS: One, you don’t listen to it. And two, in today’s world, you don’t go online.

TIME: You don’t read what’s written about you? Was there a time when you did?
WOODS: Not really. And that has served me well. It has served me well. Like my dad said when I was young, Were any of these guys there? If anybody has any kind of perspective on it, it would be the caddy. He saw the shot, he understood what the circumstances were. Other than that, there’s nobody else. So what’s their take on it? Who cares? They weren’t there. They didn’t see how difficult it was, what’s going on.

TIME: Nick Price told me years ago that it’s much different for you than it was for him when it comes to media attention. There weren’t nearly as many outlets back then. And no matter what you shoot, people want to talk to you.
WOODS: Uh-huh. I went through a stretch, I think it was eight years ago, where I never missed a post-round interview. And the first time I did, they crucified me. I said, Realize I’ve done this for almost a decade. No matter what I shot, I always did a post-round interview. I did that for like eight years in a row, every round I played in, and when I don’t do it, they just killed me for it. I go, O.K., guys, put it in perspective here. How many guys get a pass for shooting a bad round?

Have you had to learn how to deal with the changes?
WOODS: I have. Get me in the right environment and I can be myself. But if we go to a crowded place, and now everybody has their camera phones out, everybody wants a picture or an autograph—well, it’s hard to be myself when we have a crowd of people over us. You want to just hang out with me, but you can’t hang out. You can’t get a word in. Now the table’s crowded all around us. You’re having your dinner, well, you can’t—people are reaching over you to get to me. Now, is that fun?

TIME: It’s always been said that one of the things that has driven you is Jack’s 18 majors. [Jack Nicklaus set the career record for major victories between 1962 and 1986.] If your career stopped now, that’s obviously out of the question.
WOODS: I don’t want it to happen. Without a doubt. I do not. With all my heart, I do not want to stop playing golf. But the flip side is, my kids’ lives are much more important to me. Now, if I can do both, that is an ideal world. It’s a win-win. If I can only do one, it wouldn’t be golf. It would be my kids. That’s still a win-win.

TIME: You sound like you’re not driven as much by records as we might think. Yet you had Jack’s 18 majors on your bedroom wall as a kid. Is there a misconception about what drives you?
WOODS: O.K., here’s the major misconception that people have all gotten wrong. It’s what was posted on my wall, about Jack’s records. It was not the majors, O.K.. There was one on there. It was the first time he broke 40, the first time he broke 80, the first golf tournament he ever won, first time he ever won the state amateur, first time he won the U.S. Amateur, and the first time he won the U.S. Open. That was it. That was the list. It was all age-related. To me, that was important. This guy’s the best out there and the best of all time. If I can beat each age that he did it, then I have a chance at being the best.

TIME: Have you beaten most of those?
WOODS: I beat them all. I beat them all. 

TIME: So the one left isn’t the one that was on the wall, the 18 majors.
WOODS: No, just what I told you, all age-related, the first time he did this, this, this and this. His first major win was the U.S. Open. Mine was the Masters.

TIME: What is the ultimate criterion for deciding on who is the best ever
WOODS: You can’t compare eras. You really can’t. It’s like, O.K., who’s the better [pro basketball] center: Bill Russell or Shaq? You just can’t say who was the best because the game has changed so much. Jack crossed so many eras because he played for so long, and he was in contention for so long. The same could be said for Sam Snead. How many eras did he play through? He ended up winning, what, at 54, when he won at Greensboro? I think you have to be able to say you’ve played in so many different eras, and I have. Most of my friends are on the senior tour now, the guys I grew up playing with, my compatriots.

TIME: What’s it like for you sitting and not being able to compete against the current crop? I don’t think you’ve played against any of them at full strength.
WOODS: I haven’t. It’s interesting to see how the game has changed. In today’s game you don’t have to make cuts. And I see these guys miss so many cuts when they’re that good. To go out five times in a year and miss cuts, I just don’t see that. It doesn’t compute, because I haven’t done it. I think I’ve missed only 15 cuts in my career.

TIME: These younger guys like Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler are in their 20s. You’ll soon be 40. Do they ask you questions?
WOODS: Absolutely. They all have, when they first came out on tour, especially. And probably one of my closest buddies now is Jason. I’m still really close with Rory, and I’ve gotten a little bit closer to Jordan over the years, ever since we played on the same Presidents Cup team. Now we’re able to speak to each other. I didn’t even know who he was. I’d seen him play but never really got the chance to know the kid. Getting to know him, he’s a great kid.

TIME: What sort of questions?
WOODS: Jason’s probably asked the most questions. By far. What would it take for him to take his game to another level? What would you do to hit this shot? How would you play that shot? He’s very, very inquisitive. He’s not afraid to ask the question, not afraid at all. I kept telling him, Don’t ever be afraid. Colin [Swatton, Day’s longtime friend, coach and caddy] told me that he’s afraid to ask you go to play a practice round with him because it was me who got him started in the game, winning the ’97 Masters. And that’s the guy hitting balls right next to you. So Colin says he’s a great kid. I say, I know, I’ve heard a lot about him. C’mon, let’s go play. That’s how it all started, and it’s been cool ever since.

TIME: You’ve used the term “full throttle” to describe your approach, even in 2008 at the U.S. Open when you were in such pain.
WOODS: From the very first shot, the first hole, you have to be that way. It’s one of the things I was trying to teach Jason Day this year. The first hole is just as important as the last hole, and every shot is exactly the same. So you have the same intent, the same intensity. Nothing changes.

TIME: The first tee shot at the Masters is the same as the last?
WOODS: I am grinding just as hard. So if I have that mentality, I get so worn out mentally, because I’m grinding that hard. Golf is, what, five hours? You’re trying to tell me that I can’t go out there and focus that hard for five hours, when I’ve got 19 other hours to recover? That’s how I look at it. So I’m going to give it absolutely everything I can, everything I have, for this five-hour window. Let’s go. After that, hey, we’re done.

TIME: But you don’t want to hurt yourself either.
WOODS: And I have. I pushed through it. When I enter a tournament, my intent is to win. And even though I’m banged up, or whatever it is, that’s also been one of my problems, that I have had the ability to block out pain and play through it. It’s been a good thing and a bad thing.

TIME: How has it been a bad thing?
WOODS: It’s made injuries worse. I’ve paid the price. If you look at the U.S. Open in ’08, I played on no ACL, I’d ruptured my ACL in ’07, but I still won five of the last six tournaments I played that year, and the following year, I played six tournaments, I won four and finished second in the Masters. And so, understand that I can play through it, and I can still win, I can be successful, but along the way I’m just doing damage.

TIME: Did your doctors say that you shouldn’t play in the 2008 U.S. Open?

WOODS: Everybody said the same thing. I said, it’s at Torrey [Torrey Pines golf course in San Diego, where Woods had won six PGA Tour events] and I’m playing. I’m going back to work. The funniest story ever, though, is that before that U.S. Open, I’m playing at Big Canyon—which was my home course in Southern Cal [Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach]—and I went out on the back nine. It was the first time I had played a round of golf—I hadn’t played a round since the Masters. I hadn’t walked a golf course yet until I get to the Monday of the U.S. Open, when I first walked nine holes. And I tried to play with this knee brace on, and we’ve tried, I don’t know how many, umpteen different types of knee braces, lengths, size, cuts, I tried them all, all different companies.

Well, the problem was, knee braces don’t allow you to rotate—a golf swing, you need to rotate. So I went out and played nine holes. I think I’m a pretty good golfer—you know what, I think I’m a damn good golfer—but when I went out there on my home course and I lost eight balls in nine holes. I shot 54, not long before the U.S. Open, and I’m grinding my butt off, and I said, O.K., you’re the No. 1 player in the world, and you just lost eight balls on a home course that you could play blindfolded, and I shot a 54. This is going to be an interesting week.

TIME: Did you feel things starting to improve, that you could handle the pain?
WOODS: Yeah. That’s when I could feel the break a couple of times, and it hurt.

TIME: Did you ever consider, I can’t do it?
WOODS: No, no. First of all, I didn’t want to show anybody that I was hurt. You never want to show your competitors that you’re hurt. I don’t want them to get that mental edge, Oh, he’s down. You always pick yourself right back up. That’s what I’ve tried to do my entire career: not show that I am hurt. Play through it.

TIME: How do you keep up the intensity through all these injuries?
WOODS: That is probably the most satisfying, because I think anyone can win when they’re playing great golf, when they’re at a level where everything is going well. That’s easy. But trying to dog out a win when it’s just not there, it’s really hard. It’s hard on the mind. Sometimes it can be very hard on the body, when the body’s not working right. For me, I rely a lot on the past, remembering shots and situations. But also understanding at that particular moment where I need to miss the ball, where I need to place the ball, putts that I remember breaking certain ways, how this putt was on this particular green because it was wet, what it did. All those things, my memory comes back to really help me. As I’ve gotten older and gotten more experienced, if the golf course hasn’t changed, I can tell you a lot of putts and shots, what they do. If you go to a course like St. Andrew’s, where they haven’t touched it, I can tell you all the breaks. Even though there are a lot of them, I can tell you what each one does. I think my mind has probably been my greatest asset.

TIME: Do you think about your legacy?
WOODS: The greatest thing that could happen is to not be remembered. What I mean by that is, the kids right now, they don’t know that Michael Jordan played. They see a Jumpman [logo] and they think, that’s so cool. I’m talking young kids, really young kids, single digits in age, they have no idea who Michael Jordan was, but the Jumpman logo is cool. Now, for me, they don’t understand who that is. My learning center, kids go through it and they don’t know who I am. They don’t know what I’ve done. But it’s a safe haven for them to learn and grow.