♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: tiger woods is here. he is considered one of golf's greatest players if not at his best, the best. at age 21 he won his first major tournament at the masters by a record 12 strokes. he was previously the only mail to win three straight u.s. amateur titles with a total of 14 major championships under his belt, he trails only jack nicklaus who has 18.

he has been sidelined by injury including three back surgeries. he delayed his return to competitive golf stating "my game is vulnerable and not where it needs to be." this year marks the 20th anniversary of the tiger woods foundation, the charitable organization focuses on youth education and intends to double the number of students attending college through it scholarship this year. i am pleased to have tiger woods at this table for the first time. tiger: thank you, charlie. charlie: we have been trying charlie: we have been trying this for long time. this has been an interesting several weeks. there is the ryder cup. you were instrumental, you were with him on the course and do -- he says you were in his head. you announced a new company which can be involved in live events and restaurants and golf course management. you celebrated the 20th anniversary of the foundation, you announced as you did that you would play in the safeway tournament and you withdrew saying your body was ok, saying that your golf was vulnerable. what did you mean?

in tiger: before the ryder cup i was playing and i was able to shoot scorers and play it at home. then, i took some time off during the ryder cup and was focused on that. i never quite got my scoring around. i was so excited to play, i wanted to compete and i went out to stanford right before safeway and i was practicing out there with the team and hang out with them and work on my game and it is a hard realization knowing that i am not scoring like i should be. my field for hitting, 150 yards seven errands and jumping on a 9-iron and hitting the correct distance, shaping shots, all that stuff, i lost the feel of that.

and trust me, as a competitor i was ready to go and i wanted to compete but in my heart of hearts i knew that i could not go out there and shoot 63's and 64's. and as a competitor, trust me, it does not deal very good. as a competitor, it does not feel very good. charlie: as the latest iron player in the history of the game, to take a seven iron ore a wedge and not be able to do what you know you have done before, what you have felt before. what does it feel like? tiger: it was the feel of hitting those shots because i have not done it enough. i was in it groove playing at home, i took the time off for the ryder cup and trying to come back after that, i just did not have the same feel and i thought it would pick it up right away. i was ready to go. and man it is tough knowing that , i see a shot and i say i can kind of feel it but it is not quite there yet. if it is not quite there, even

a year to get back to this point. let's be smart about it and not rush it. and that is from my brain saying that but my heart is saying, tiger, let's play. let's go, and it's get back into it. charlie: looking back, have you come back before? tiger: i have done it;'s a few surgeries or injuries, i have played through them and come back early, i have damaged the body to compete at a high level so many times. this time, i took a lot of time off to get it right. and there's no sense in hurrying and getting it, you know, it injuring anymore. i want to do it all right at the same time in capital come together. i thought i thought i was ready for it and i was not. it is all right. take a step back. you waited this long. there's no urgency in getting

back out there into doing it again. make sure your stuff is ready and when your stuff is ready, let's go. charlie: you will know. tiger: i will know. charlie: have you had those kinds of rounds? tiger: i have done that at home but knowing that i have to do it in a scoring environment on a pj -- pga tour, and shoot the kind of scores i'm shooting at home. make the low 60's alien to do it again. i was not quite ready for that yet. because this is the longest layoff i have ever had in my career, i have never had this long a layoff, my feels are not quite what they used to be. i need more practice time. playing more money games at home, some of the young guys coming out there. some of the young guys come over and we will play a little bit. charlie: other golfers love around you? 30 pros who are

play out there. charlie: it is the difference between the driving range and the course. there is a difference between playing around with friends and a tournament. being ranger rick is one thing and then playing with your buddies is another thing. and playing the tour level is a totally different deal. and be on the major championships. there is a progression and i am not quite at that were-level progression yet. charlie: do you believe the talent is there? tiger: yeah. i can get the shots, and can feel the shots, i do not quite have it all yet. i like having a full repertoire of shots. and it really was not there yet. charlie: let me analyze your game. -- cutting is what made you

the putting is what made you great. can putt. charlie: there is no problem. the long irons? tiger: ok. it is the overall scoring. it is putting it all together. keeping it in the fairway, i am not quite as long as they used to be. charlie: and by how much? tiger: 10 yards. the big boys are now 330. it is a different ball game and the game has gotten a little look bigger. the ryder cupe at

watching some of the guys hitting, i am looking at the numbers, it is 52 degrees and we are looking at the numbers saying i just carried .308. can you hit that far? charlie: do you need to make adjustments to your swing? tiger: i am making slight tweaks and that is something i have always done. making a little bit of tweaks. charlie: the search for perfection. tiger: not perfection but excellence. i have converted the word into professional excellence. charlie: you are thinking perfect. tiger: i am trying to get better. charlie: and that is the search to, what can i do, as good as i am. you were experimenting with your game when you were winning every tournament. tiger: i was doing that as a kid. always trying to get a little better. charlie: mindset, will to win. clear headedness. that is there? tiger: sure. charlie: and those who suggest vulnerable means not just the game but somehow not having the

same sense of rightness. at the best of your game. tiger: i played my best 16 years ago. most guys are not jumping and doing 360 dunks at the age of 40. most guys are not taking off the foul line. not doing dunks at the age of 40. we have to make adjustments as we get older. i have done that throughout the years. and throughout different injuries, played around them. this is no different. charlie: i get the sense that you do not want anymore surgeries. tiger: god, no. reasons.for different you want to play with your kids and all that stuff. you have suggested you have had it with surgery. tiger: seven is enough. charlie: and you want to play and do these other things. tiger: i am in pain. i love playing soccer with my kids and tossing the ball around and playing golf with charlie, i love doing that stuff. that is the best feeling in the world. my daughter plays soccer.

for us to do soccer drills and have fun, to me, when i was hurt after the last surgery and i could not do any of that stuff for months at a time, that was brutal. that was hard to take. because, daddy, let's play. daddy can't move. charlie: but i do get the sense of what you're doing, announcing the company, that you are prepared if golf is over to have another life. tiger: well, charlie, it is basically, the tgr branding is bringing the business under one envelope. they have been co-existing. i am setting up chapter two of my life. chapter one was the golfer. only the golfer of playing morning golf term ends. i am sitting at chapter two without hitting a golf ball and trying to create a business empire and different business entities and growing that so i don't have to hit a golf ball. so i can do other things that are of my interest. the golfer can still be there.

i can still play, i can still do those things but it is not mandatory for my business to grow and for me to help kids with my foundation or the restaurant or the designer all that stuff. i do not have to hit a golf ball. i can transition eventually into being strictly an entrepreneur. charlie: and involved with the foundation and other things. tiger: 100%. charlie: here is what is interesting about you more than in any athlete i know. it is not just you, it is us. we cannot let you go. there is a sense that we never -- tiger: you care? charlie: yes we never understood what it was to be so brilliant on a golf course. we did not get how one could be we did not get how one could be so dominant in a sport. we did not understand how you could lose that either. you know and we desperately and , i think this is everybody, anduse of the mystique

because of where was at hand how intost and to understand want you to come back. to really see it, that kind of dominance, it is reflected in television ratings. they want to see it one more time. you have thought about that. tiger: of course. i miss being out there, i miss competing, i a miss mixing it up with the boys and coming down the stretch. charlie: you like being tiger woods. those guyske beating and that is why practiced all those hours and why i trained and ran all those miles is to be ready to take on those guys down the stretch. do i miss it, absolutely, 100%. and to be at my age now at 40 years old and to have gone through the things i have gone through physically, i am the first one to admit, i can't do the things i used to be able to, most people can't at my age.

because of my mindset, i am naturally a tactician. even when i was hitting the ball long and blowing all the top of the bunkers, that was the strategy. i used my mind and eventually the method i used a lead me to master my craft. charlie: but, that is why the mind is so important. you used your mind, you learned that from your father am i assume. you learned mental toughness. you learned how to win. you still have that. tiger: oh, yeah. that part has not left me. i know how to get it done. i just need to get into position to get it done. charlie: you have to do it yourself. there is no coach or psychiatrist who can tell you that. tiger: as an individual athlete you are out there yourself. i know joe is with me on the bag , but no one is pulling the trigger, no one is bailing you out.

the manager is not coming in and bringing the right thing when you're struggling. no timeouts and i am not feeling good, the guy off -- the guy will come off the bench and fill your role for the night. you are by yourself out there. charlie: that is what you liked about the game. grind of it.d the i like to be ownership. what i really loved is and i still love is getting out there and figuring out a way to get it done. just figuring out a way. whatever you have, trying to figure out a way to dig down deep in myself and find out a way to get it done. it may not be pretty but finding a way to get it done because i have won golf tournaments hitting it over fairways left and right. missing greens, chipping in and holing out. charlie: when it was dark people -- you could not possibly see hole.

tiger: i am tiger, i am a cat. charlie: you said you were never the most talented, the biggest or the strongest, the only thing i had was my work ethic and that is what has gotten me this far. tiger: you can take that away -- well, charlie, you cannot take that away from me. you can take away my hair, all attributes, but you can't touch my mind. that part of it is being mentally prepared and having the mindset of preparing and digging in and doing the work. i have never been afraid of that. charlie: some have said to be tiger woods was a gift and a burden. how is it a burden? tiger: it is a burden in the sense that the amount of obligations that i have at a tournament, anonymity that was lost.

if you look back, the only regret i have in life is not spending another year at stanford. i wish i had one more year. charlie: that is the only regret. of all the things that happen to you. everything. tiger: of all of the things i have learned. tough, buthas been it has been great for me. i wish it would have gone one more year to stanford. charlie: why do you say that? tiger: the amount of brilliant people that were there, the things it was learning at that time, was i ready to turn pro? physically, yeah. i won a tournament and i won the college slam, no one has ever done that. three years in a row. and so i was ready to go but i , wish i would have spent more -- one more year learning from everyone who was there, people who were designing their own computers, people working on the linux accelerator.

charlie: there is stories about you being interested in a range of things like that. you can always do that. tiger: being around this people at that age you do not get a chance to do that again and have two great years at stanford, it shaped me more than the subsequent, the two years really did shape me because the amount of people and also going away from home for the first time and for me to feel at home and comfortable around some of the greatest athletes on the planet, some of the brightest minds in the planet. and we were all so young and we were doing it together and this is before the internet. having the communication and trying to get through study groups, that is one thing i do miss. charlie: this is in the 90's -- 1990's. i want to talk about how you became tiger. why golf in the first place? tiger: that is a great question. i have played it basically all my life. i played baseball, i was a pitcher, i ran track and cross country.

i liked doing those sports, i did not love it. i kept coming back to golf. i kept finding myself running the miles in track and getting -- especially cross-country, getting all of that mileage in to get ready to play golf. when i was on the mound throwing and thinking, ok, this is number one, i have to position my shot so this fastball will be outside. i kept thinking of, my mind kept coming back to golf. whatever i was doing it kept coming back to golf. charlie: in june watched your father hit balls in the garage up against the net. tiger: i did. it was one of those el niño years. pops was not allowed to go out there and hit the amount of range balls because it was

hosing down rain, storm after storm kept coming. i just happened to be born in december of the next year that el niño hits and here i am. charlie: talk about him and her -- your relationship with him. tiger: he is a person i missed dearly. i think about him every day. he was more than just my dad. he was a person i could always turn to, a friend, mentor, a leader. and eventually, a follower. he put on so many different hats and was comfortable playing different roles and that is something i thoroughly miss. charlie: what did he give you? tiger: my dad gave me so much, he gave me his heart and his soul and the fact that we were able to have the conversations we were able to have throughout

my childhood and when i turned pro, and even when he was sick and he was battling prostate cancer three times. he would always find time and somehow find a way to talk to me. even if he was not feeling well he would sit up and we would have a great conversation. ♪

♪ charlie: let me ask about a couple of things, number one a time that you jumped out of a plane at fort bragg or somewhere. and your dad said, now you know what my life is like. correct? tiger: i jumped out the golden knights at fort bragg. charlie: what did he mean? tiger: i had grown up playing at a military golf course and had been around the military and been around active duty and retired servicemen my entire life. i have not experienced what he had to do for his job. charlie: he was a green beret in vietnam.

tiger: a melee of transportation to get to his job -- i had to take a car to get to the golf course, his was jumping out of an airplane. charlie: now you can see what made me. tiger: correct. the amount of physical work, the operating in the past and currently, it is brutal on the body and it is tougher on the mind. and so getting over fear and relying on others not only to basically save your life, that is something i never experienced, never understood. charlie: he helped you understand fearlessness? tiger: i would not necessarily understand it because i was a adrenaline junkie to begin with. i understood where he was coming from now. charlie: he was here at this table sitting where you are. here is tiger's pop. >> i maximize his opportunity with his own assets and his own skills create and brought this out at him.

he already had toughness, i might add. then, i brought more to the table, taught him how to refine it, and develop additional toughness in him through experiential things. since that time, since he graduated from what i call woods finishing school, he has exponentially gone even higher on the toughness scale. past even when i thought and it is surprising him. he has called me and he says, pop, i'm getting so tough and every time i see him and i have been away from him a little while, i am amazed at how much tougher he is. charlie: that is cool -- tiger: that is cool. charlie: to see him. tiger: it is cool to see him. charlie: at the best of those years when you had such a

remarkable, spectacular run -- that you had toughness. you were mentally tougher than ever buddy else. tiger: i just knew i was going to beat you. charlie: you were expected to win. it is part of what happened to you. tiger: that is fine but i expect to win as well. the toughness i think, the toughness came in through practice as you were alluding to, hard work. and me working hard and feeling comfortable in hitting all the shots and pulling it off my all the shots you have seen me pull off, i have already pulled off. i did it at practice. if i can do it there i can do it anywhere. charlie: you're convinced you worked harder than anyone else. tiger: done is something -- i i just know that as i alluded to, i was not always the biggest or the fastest, i was not the most

gifted but you can't take away my work ethic. charlie: you wanted it more? tiger: i wanted to beat more. charlie: is it the same competitiveness that michael jordan has? you know michael. tiger: i do. michael is tough and he loves winning, he loves beating people. and i think there is a certain commonality between all levels, forget athletes but all professions, i think he just enjoys getting better and being the best. charlie: what happens when they beat you? tiger: you go back to the drawing board and you do it again. charlie: there is always another day and i will be back and i will beat you. tiger: my winning percentage is not very high. we lose more golf tournaments than we win. it is like a baseball player. if you hit 300 you are in the hall of fame. so you lose 70% of the time. but you are one of the best to his ever played. in my sport it is the same way. the winning percentage is not very high but it is still a way

to come back and get it done. charlie: how do we measure the best to ever play golf. is it jack because he has 18 majors or is it some general appraisal, simply that that person had more talent and applied it better than anybody? tiger: that is a great question. we never got a chance to play against one another except for that one time when we played with each other in 2000. but when you cross generations, it is very difficult to see who is better than the other. in all sports. i just think that for me, i was -- i would take my skills against jack any day and i am sure he would feel the same way. charlie: do you believe you will get 18 majors? tiger: to be honest, no. charlie: you don't. you have accepted that. tiger: i have accepted i will get more.

[laughter] charlie: you are 40. jack won the masters when he was 40. ent almost one knee open when he was 59-years-old. and he almost won the open 59-years-old. you have to get started soon. tiger: sooner or not, i need to get started and be ready to go. charlie: when your dad died and you took his body back to kansas. did that take something out of you? tiger: having to bury my father, i have never lost a parent, my mom is still alive. that was the first person that has ever been close to me that i have had to go to a funeral and happened to be the

person i was closest to. charlie: the most influential person in your life, bar none. tiger: also the person i was closest to. i do not know if i am the only one who has ever felt that way. it hurt a lot. i grieved -- i do not grieve right away. i put it away for a while. i missed the cut at the u.s. open. i still had not really grieved. i came back and played well and for some reason it was the most interesting thing, playing the final round, i had this sense of calm. what is this feeling? you know, normally you are pretty jacked up to play when you get a chance to win. and i did. i had the lead. but all of a sudden i had this calmness. it was like pop was there. i finished the whole 18. i never cried. this started coming out.

i just missed my dad. i knew he would never witnessed this again. that was hard to take. charlie: he treated you like an adult. tiger: he did. one of the things i do, that he did with me, any time we talked he would make sure he was at eye level. when he was above me he would sit down. if he was lying down toward the end of his life, he would sit up. we would always work at eye level. that is something that i think is so important. he never talked down to his child. we were communicating. charlie: there were times in which you are estranged from him. tiger: i don't know about estranged. what you mean? charlie: you were not getting along because you had some questions and your mother knew he was sick. is it true? it's a perfectly natural thing for everybody to do.

your mother said, you have to go make up with your father. know how long he is going to live it and if you don't you will regret it for the rest of your life. tiger: i wouldn't say we were that far apart like that. we were still in communication and talking. but i needed to get my relationship back to where it used to be. charlie: what was wrong with that? tiger: when dad was sick he said some outlandish things. i think it was just him being sick. but, i took it personal. so i said, hey, you know what? i said, you have been really sick and the meds you have been on, his diabetes was bad. and i did not understand it at the time. because i was still playing golf and focused on things i needed to do. a couple of times when he was sick he would say kentucky, how was kentucky last week?

i would say dad i was here with you yesterday. you know, so that is, he said outlandish things some time. so chalk it up to being sick. but he gave me one last hurrah. about two weeks before he died. it was a talk, about an hour and a half. but my dad was old. he gave me one last bit of himself. from then on he quickly eroded and then finally passed away. charlie: would you be the golfer you are without your dad? tiger: no. without my dad or my mother. there is no way. charlie: both of them. tiger: no way. charlie: because your mother stood by you and by him. tiger: my mother was so supportive and so loyal, and so great as a mother there is just no way.

charlie: she was also supportive after thanksgiving 2009 when you had a public humiliation. tell me about dealing with that. and shey mom was my mom became my mother. she said, i'm always here. i love you no matter what. she gave me a bunch of big hugs. that was really cool. did i mess up? absolutely. my mom was still there for me. and that was my mom. i didn't have my dad anymore. it was just her and i. charlie: some would suggest that humiliation you went through publicly, your public life exposed, has a lingering effect on your mind and your game. tiger: i have heard that. i look at the fact that i have a made a bunch of mistakes. in the end, my ex-wife is one of my best friends. we have two beautiful kids. we have better communication than we have ever had and i have

talked to her about my life almost on a daily basis and she does the same. it was rough to go through but in the end, here we are better than we have ever been. charlie: how do you tell your kids? why mama and daddy are not together? tiger: because daddy made some mistakes. i would rather have them hear it from me. charlie: so you sat down and said, i regret what i did? tiger: no, i haven't said that. i said everyone makes mistakes. the reason my mom lives in her house and dad lives in his house is because dad made mistakes and it is ok. you guys are lucky to have two kids who love you so much. i was lucky enough to have two loving parents. my dad did not.

his parents died when he was 11 years old and 13 years old. he grew up without having parents. my mom's parents died early. that to me i think is important. my kids know that no matter what happens they always have dad. dad will always be there. mom will always be there. we just do not live together physically. emotionally and spiritually we are always with them. charlie: you feel like you have apologized to you need to on terms of family and people that you care about? tiger: yes. charlie: did it make you more vulnerable? tiger: not more vulnerable is the word. charlie: what would you say? tiger: i had to be honest with myself. and, that is part of going through what i went through, i messed up. i shunned a way a lot of things. i didn't communicate very well. for instance, with elan. on the flipside, fast-forward, i'm a better communicator now. i talk to people more on a

deeper level. i learned a lot. charlie: if she has forgiven you that as a starting point for you. tiger: she has forgiven me a long time ago. we have worked hard on creating an environment with our kids. she is one of my best friends. not many say that about their exes. that they are their best friends. charlie: so your dad is gone, the humiliation in which you have dealt with, and then injuries. when you look at losing, are those three things responsible or is it something we don't know or understand? at the same time, tiger woods since 2009 -- 2008 -- but at the same time, tiger woods has had good seasons like 2013. tiger: player of the year. charlie: i am struggling to understand why you are not playing like you used to play.

as i assume you are. if you don't know how can anyone else know? there are all kinds of suggestions. by all kinds of people. tiger: there are a lot of armchair quarterbacks. i have had three back operations and that has taken its toll. charlie: not the athlete physically. tiger: i have torn achilles, a blown out knee torn meniscus. ,so, i have gone through physically a lot. i have changed my swing since 2008 three times trying to accommodate. charlie: because of the pain and trying to get around certain injuries? tiger: and not duplicate them. ♪

♪ charlie: what is the best advice you have gotten? tiger: the advice of my dad. his famous line, you get out of it what you put into it. charlie: you get out what you put in. tiger: you get out of it what you put into it. if you work hard you will get the results. if you don't work hard you don't

deserve it. you didn't earn it. charlie: how much of it is physical and how much is mental? tiger: for me the mental comes from the physicality. from the physicality. from having great practice sessions and training sessions and going on the golf course with the guys, taking that into tournament setting. then into another tournament, then major championships. all of those progressions, it starts with hitting putts. working from the grain back. it is liked how i learned the game. it is the progression. it does not happen overnight. it takes a lot of effort. charlie: that will get you back? tiger: absolutely. charlie: the mental part, everybody knew you had early when you went into the u.s. amateur, you had all of the tools. but the mental stuff was so important. you wanted to win and you wanted to -- not just win, you wanted to win that tournament. wanted to beat the hell out

of everyone who was there. you were a killer. winning was fun. beating somebody was better. charlie: why is that? tiger: i have always had that. if you win a race by a second or two it feels better if you win it by five or six. or five guys out. absolutely. winning a golf tournament by one or two is great. but five or six is even better. charlie: so, it must be terribly hard for you to accept this. tiger: it has been terribly hard not to do the things it would take to get to that level. that is simply just practicing. charlie: you have a strong confidence and your dad did in hard work. tiger: no, that is where it

stems from. charlie: that is how ben hogan came back from a car accident. hogan believed in the same thing. that is how he came back from a car accident. he said it is in the dirt. tiger: correct. you have to go earn it. charlie: you have these coaches, i wonder if you need a swing coach because you had a good swing. but you are saying you have to adjust a new swing because of the injuries which changed or body? tiger: correct. and having the correct mindset to go into a change, and applying it to creating a method that i think would be better and more efficient. that is what i was always trying to do. that is why i have gone through swing coaches. and that is why have gone through -- i have hurt my body.

ok, let's not repeat that. let's try a different way. i believe in that mindset. let's create this method and go down that road. let's master that. and then next thing you know, that didn't work. let's do it again. charlie: there were people who have described you, you were so self-focused and thinking about the game, you did not seem to get a lot of attention to other people. yes? tiger: people who were closest to me, yes. and then again, i was uncomfortable being out in public, -- charlie: so it was shyness? other than arrogance and being a jerk? tiger: i was always very shy. when i was little i had a speech impediment and i used to study -- stutter pretty badly. go to a special afterschool program for two years to learn how to speak correctly. i sat in the back of the classroom.

if you called on me i could not speak. the teacher would just pass on me and go to the next student. i had to learn how to speak. that was hard. i could read and write. but i could not speak. and so i did not want to speak to anybody. i did not want to talk to anybody. having to go through that difficult time early on in my childhood probably is what shaped me to what i am now. charlie: people who know golf and know you, they believe you can come back. because they believe that the elite can come back. but it believes -- it is the belief and it is also making sure you face a new reality, which is what you are talking about. the new reality is, i hit it differently today. i have to compensate. pick out a new way to win. tiger: most 40-year-olds cannot dunk from the 40 yard line. i have to go a different way. that is part of the evolution of

my game. it is part of the evolution of sports. you have to find a different way to do it. there is nothing wrong with that. as you alluded to jack won the masters at the age of 46. those guys were not overpowering golf courses. they did it with their minds, they did it strategically. through patience. charlie: that is what you can do. tiger: that is what i have done in the past but also have the physicality. charlie: you have lost a little bit of the physicality. tiger: a yak, you know. because i look at tiger: the bunker is now a 320. charlie: when you were at your best with the idea of laying up was not something that went into your head. tiger: because of the fact i could not only pull off the shots and i was far enough down there. relative to the field i was one of the longest players. that was at 296.

charlie: now it is 320. tiger: the number coming back, most were still using persimmon. my carry number was 280. right now i can come out and hit a three with 280. it's a different game than what it was then. the game of golf has gotten so much bigger and longer. relative to the field i am not quite what i used to be. numbers wise i am longer than i used to be. charlie: it is also said you don't intimidate like you used to that is part of what you have. you intimidated everybody. you came expecting to win and they saw you they expect to lose . tiger: i do not know what they were thinking but i expected to

beat them, yes. charlie: you expected to win. that is what the demand on me is because of what i have achieved. tiger: forget what i have achieved i expect to win and i expect to beat you. because of the work i have put in and the belief i have. charlie: a lot of people work hard, but you're saying some people cannot work as hard. tiger: i don't know how they work or derive their own confidence. some players derive from practice. some like to play a bunch of tournaments. i have really haven't played that much. since 1999. some have played up to close to 30 events. i have never done that. i have tried to peak four times a year. when i was younger it was harder. three years in a row. i did that for a couple of years. then, as a pro, four times.

charlie: when do you think you will come back? tiger: i'm hoping to come back in december. charlie: in december. tiger: yes. at the challenge. charlie: you believe you can do that and you will be ready? something between withdrawing from safeway and competing there. tiger: more hard work. charlie: this game. i want to talk about the game, to. of all of the tournaments which meant the most to you question -- which meant the most to you? the first masters when you are 21-years-old? tiger: meant the most or the hardest to win? charlie: both. tiger: men's the most was the 97 masters. the hardest one was the last one in 2008. my leg was broken. charlie: right. you played through that.

l meniscus.acm my leg was broken. charlie: how did you do that? tiger: hell if i know. i don't know how i pulled that off. charlie: you said to me today what you love about the game is winning, but more specifically beating somebody. that is what you love. tiger: that is fun. charlie: what is it about the military? the navy seals that had you so engaged, obsessed, admiring? charlie: my dad was in special forces. green beret. and so, being around special forces operators on my life, i have seen that world. that world is difficult, yes but it is also comparable to me. -- comfortable to me because i was raised in it. some of my best friends were operators. the guys were operating at the

time or retired. the guys who were operating became retired and we still play golf. that was a world that i had grown up in. and so was it a big jump from me , to participate and see it in a different light? not really. because i have seen it all my life. being a military brat, that is kind of what i was used to. charlie: one of your caddies said you were thinking about giving up golf to become a navy seal. did you? tiger: i told my dad i want to either become a person the military or a golfer or businessman. i got a chance to become a golfer and a businessman. i just didn't go into the military. charlie: arnold palmer died in the last couple of weeks. what did he mean to you? tiger: he was a friend. he was a friend. a person that i could pick up the phone and call.

we would rap about different things. and how many conversations and dinners i've had with him, some great memories. one of the fondest memories i have was at napa in college. he invited me over for dinner. i went over and had dinner with him and napa. arnold got the tab. i'm not going to say no. my coach found out, and said, did you pick up the tab? i said no. i'm declared ineligible. i go to the all-american in el paso. i have to write arnold palmer a $25 check for my steak dinner. check, faxedh the

a copy back to the in situ ways, then i was declared eligible to play in the all-american. charlie: how about jack niklas? what is your relationship with him? do you believe he is the greatest golfer to live? tiger: i think i'm pretty good, too? i think he and i would have a hell of a duel. i think right now i could kick his -- he's 71 right now. charlie: 40 would beat 70. tiger: you think? think jack has always been one of my heroes. i looked up to his record. i would not say i lusted for his record that i think that was the gold standard. he had one the most majors and the second most tour events. and so he was the most efficient at the highest level for the longest period of time.

and, how did he do it? he didn't play that much. he played a limited schedule. he paced himself and tried to get ready four times year. he was better at it again anybody else that came along. here he is at 18. charlie: and you are at 14. you believe you will have more than 18. tiger: correct. charlie: and if you don't? tiger: i didn't get there. charlie: you said it is in fact anything that i went from now is -- then i win from now on is gravy. you know you are in the hall of fame, there are record books, regardless people say you are the greatest because they saw the level of that name and i've never seen anything like it. it was famously, the comment i aess that bobby jones made

you, thatnd then for is not a game i am familiar with. jack said that is not a game i am familiar with. tiger: it is a generational thing. jack could not hit it that far. technologies have changed. it has changed greatly. in so i was able to do things jack was not able to do because of equipment, jack could not do things because bobby jones did because of equipment. but one commonality is that we were all efficient with what we did. and, we did it better than most people did. charlie: some say that the great ones never lose the fire the only lose their ability. that is true, isn't it? tiger: there will be a point where i will basically not be able to do it. charlie: how will you know? and how do you know that is not now? tiger: i will be able to prepare and be ready to go out there and win. for me if i'm not able to

prepare to win, then i cannot do it anymore. charlie: what do you want to be known for other than a great golfer and a great businessman? tiger: what we have done for all of the kids through our learning labs. i think the whole second part of my life will probably be even better and more impactful than what i did as a golfer. ♪

♪ david: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." carol: we are inside the magazine's headquarters right here in new york city. the year ahead 2017. david: taking a close look at the companies economies -- >> products and innovators that will matter in 2017. david: we have a list of the 50 companies to watch in 2017. carol: we will talk about all of it. let's get started. ♪