Follow the roar : tailing Tiger for all 604 holes of his most spectacular season

With his career at a standstill and his golf game a mere shadow of its former mediocrity, TV writer and ESPN.com contributor Bob Smiley decided the time had come to turn to the one person who might be able to help: Tiger Woods. So, in January 2008, Smiley set out to follow the game's greatest player from the gallery for every hole of an entire season. Smiley tailed Tiger from the seaside cliffs of San Diego to the deserts of Dubai, through the hallowed gates of Augusta National, and on to arguably the greatest U.S. Open of all time, at Torrey Pines—where, in a legendary duel with charismatic journeyman Rocco Mediate, Woods won his fourteenth major . . . on one leg. Told from the perspective of a true golf fan, Follow the Roar is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure through the most spectacular and inspiring season in Tiger Woods' celebrated career.

With an eye for vivid detail and indefatigable determination, ESPN.com contributer Bob Smiley tracked Tiger Woods for all 604 holes of his 2008 season, from the seaside cliffs of San Diego to the deserts of Dubai, through the hallowed gates of Augusta National, and, ultimately, back to California for the greatest U.S. Open of all time. There, at Torrey Pines, it took Tiger 91 holes to beat charismatic journeyman Rocco Mediate to win his fourteenth major—on one leg.

Chronicling every dramatic and often hysterical moment from the gallery, Follow the Roar is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure through the most spectacular and inspiring season in Tiger Woods's celebrated career.

Lee Arnold - Library Journal

During the writer's strike, TV writer Smiley persuaded ESPN.com to allow him to write a humor column on golf as a freelancer. This morphed into the goal of following Tiger Woods on every hole during the 2008 golf season. Smiley financed the project himself, which is significant because he was without other income. He shares some behind-the-scenes stories from Dubai, the Masters, and the U.S. Open. As golf quests go, this is interesting but not nearly as remarkable as, say, Andre Tolme's I Golfed Across Mongolia. The most notable book of many written about individuals' golfing quests is perhaps Tom Coyne's Paper Tiger; Turk Pipkin wrote of his strivings in The Old Man and the Tee. Smiley's coverage of the Tavistock Cup (a neighborhood competition by the PGA from Lake Nona and Isleworth-with a purse of over $3 million) trumps the televised version, which misses the full flavor of the event. Still, while this may be of interest to die-hard Tiger Woods fans, it will have a short shelf life. An optional purchase.

During the winter of 2008, sitcom writer Bob Smiley decided to join his fellow writers and walk the picket line in support of the Writers Guild of America. A golf junkie since boyhood, Smiley reached out to ESPN and got a freelance gig writing golf humour columns from the point of view of the average 18+ handicapper. When he realised the writers' strike was going to last longer than he'd anticipated, he decided to attempt a feat many sports fans fantasize to follow Tiger Woods from the gallery for every hole of an entire season. So with a wife and two small children at home, Smiley hit the PGA trail, travelling on the cheap for months on end. His adventures took him from San Diego to the deserts of Dubai, through the gates of Augusta National, and to, arguably, the greatest U.S. Open of all time at Torrey Pines, where in June of 2008 Tiger defeated the opposition on only one leg. (His other one was debilitated by a torn ACL and fractured tibia.) Following his inspiring victory at the U.S. Open, Tiger announced that he was going straight into surgery and would sit out the rest of the 2008 season. Although this turn of events eliminated the possibility of a Grand Slam (winning all four Majors in a single calendar year), Tiger's strength and courage in the face of golf mortality add a whole new dimension to his story - and to Smiley's. With his career at a standstill and his golf game a shadow of its former mediocrity, TV writer and ESPN.com contributor Bob Smiley decided the time had come to turn to the one person who might be able to help: Tiger Woods. So, in January of 2008, Smiley set out to follow the game's greatest player from the gallery for every hole of an entire season and to absorb all that he could.Smiley traveled from the seaside cliffs of San Diego to the deserts of Dubai, through the hallowed gates of Augusta National, and on to arguably the greatest U.S. Open of all time back at Torrey Pines, where, in a legendary duel with charismatic journeyman Rocco Mediate, Woods won his fourteenth major — on one leg.Smiley chronicles every dramatic and often hysterical moment of his journey with Tiger, including his off-course run-ins with Arabian sandstorms, ex-con ticket scalpers, and the motley assortment of strangers who became friends along the way.Told from the perspective of a true golf fan, Follow the Roar is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure through the most spectacular and inspiring season in Tiger Woods's celebrated career. In addition to the thrill of witnessing all 604 holes Woods played in '08, Smiley found in Tiger both inspiration and the gutsy embodiment of what it really means to be an athlete — and a man. The television writer and ESPN.com contributor describes his experiences as he followed Tiger Woods through his 2008 season, discussing the places they went, the games played, and what he learned from Woods along the way Title from PDF title page (viewed on Jan. 14, 2009).