First Coming (Library of Contemporary Thought)

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0345422864, Paperback)

Few things are more fun than reading a book from a writer who's got an ax to grind, an unhidden bias and an argument as sharp as his blade. John Feinstein, who is as prolific and authoritative as any sportswriter sharpening a, uh, pencil these days, takes a breather from the usual in-depth reportage of big books such as A March to Madness and A Civil War to tee off on Team Tiger in what is essentially a long magazine essay stuffed between book covers. The First Coming may be short, but like a wily par 3, it's loaded.

Feinstein makes this clear from the get-go: he is awed by what Tiger Woods can do with a golf club, and he detests the way money rules sports. Thus, his beef isn't with the phenom of the fairways, regardless of how surly and capricious and self-inflated he can be; it's with Tiger's entourage--his father (who's likened the son to the Second Coming), his management company, and his endorsement sponsors, all of whom seem bent on extracting every pound of flesh they can in pursuit of the almighty dollar. In Tiger's case, the number comes to a very dividable stack of about 100 million of them. Feinstein declares a holy war on Tiger's team. The journalist is extremely tough on Earl Woods, for example, comparing him to one-time tennis hopeful Jennifer Capriati's father. He argues convincingly that, with Tiger's financial den secure, the golfer should forget about burning himself out by chasing every cent he can rake in for them and take dead aim on only one target for himself: the majesty of chasing Jack Nicklaus's seemingly unsurpassable achievement of 18 major tournament victories.

"The most important question that remains unanswered," writes Feinstein, "is this: Who is Tiger Woods? He's not the messiah, that's for certain." At this stage in his life and career, though, the positive side of that answer remains hidden in the rough, even for a scribe of Feinstein's provocative daring.