Michael Jordan and Tiger woods are considered the greatest players of all time in their respective sports. Jordan dominated basketball and established himself as a legend, and Woods did the same in golf.
Being such high-profile athletes can be very difficult, as they are constantly in the public eye, and their every step becomes a news story on the front pages. And so dealing with personal problems can be extremely difficult.
Jordan and Woods have had a long-running relationship, but one that has suffered from hurt feelings. Woods and Jordan did not speak to each other for a long time after MJ made some comments about Woods in a 2016 interview with ESPN:
Michael Jordan somewhat re-established a relationship with the world’s most famous golfer more than seven years after the public meltdown of Woods’ private life. But he hasn’t spoken to him in many months.
Sources close to both Jordan and Woods, on condition of anonymity, say Woods hasn’t called since Jordan’s rare candor in an ESPN The Magazine article about Woods in April 2016.
And even then, the friendship was never as close as it had been before 2009, when Jordan believed he had a genuine big-brother influence on Woods’ life.
In the ESPN article, Jordan lamented that Woods was still consumed by what others think about him, that guilt and regret still ruled his thoughts. “That bothers him more than anything,” Jordan told writer Wright Thompson. “It looms. It’s in his mind. It’s a ship he can’t right and he’s never going to. What can you do? The thing is about T-Dub, he cannot erase. That’s what he really wants. He wants to erase the things that happened.
“The thing is, I love him so much that I can’t tell him, ‘You’re not gonna be great again.’ ”
The two reportedly made amends very recently, but still aren’t as close as they used to be. When Tiger Woods was dealing with some difficult personal problems, Michael Jordan was asked about what advice he would give to Woods.
He noted that he didn’t want Woods to struggle with finding happiness and hoped that he could find the strength to get through this. Jordan also suggested that Woods would need to rely on someone close to him:
“He has … no companion,” Jordan said last year. “He has to find that happiness within his life, that’s the thing that worries me. I don’t know if he can find that type of happiness. He’s gonna have to trust somebody.”
“To be fair, all athletes are sensitive,” he said. “Tiger is at times sensitive. Michael is at times sensitive. Charles is the least sensitive. But they’re all relatively young. Things come full circle. Who’s to say they won’t get to a place where they’re friends again? You say you’re sorry and you pick up where you left off. That’s a true sign of a friend.”
Jordan would be one of the few people in the world who could relate to Tiger Woods. Being the best in your respective field is not easy, and the pressures that come on and off the field are extreme.
Being in the public eye, both players also experienced scandals in their lives. And as a result, they both were scrutinized significantly throughout their careers. But both players were able to persevere and continue performing at the highest levels during this time.
Both MJ and Woods exhibited great mental strength during their careers, as they had to deal not just with the pressure of being great, but also had to endure their personal lives and reputations becoming the subject of water-cooler talk. And for being able to do so, the two will always be applauded.
