Raising the Bar: The Championship Years of Tiger Woods

And Rosaforte is there for every part of it. The conquests. The struggles. The endorsements, the contracts, the commercials. Tigermania. The horrible performance in the 1997 Ryder Cup matches. The doubts. The questions. The reassessment and reformulation of his game under the guidance of Butch Harmon. The weightlifting and fitness routine. The streak. The majors. The Grand Slam. It's a riveting triumph of will and focus, hard work and raw talent.

If Woods's game raises the bar--and there's no doubt that it has--Rosaforte's chronicle can't quite match the standards set by his subject. Yes, the book is well reported and certainly readable, but it seems rushed, a recapitulation churned out to be timely, rather than an analysis of a phenomenon that might be timeless in itself. Perhaps it's just too soon to expect that in a book, but if Tiger can raise the bar on the course, there's no reason the scribes who have him in their sights can't raise it some, as well. --Jeff Silverman

Product Description

This book is a very easy book to read, even though it's a big book. Tim uses very easy words to understand. This book follows Tiger through every championship starting from his first one.

I would recommend this book to people who like sports and seeing people do well even though they weren't expected too. I'm the kind of person that likes books that shows how good people do coming from a not so good background. I give this book *** because if follows every detail of Tiger starting when he was a kid.


SHALLOW STUFF HERE   August 23, 2002
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I enjoyed the book simply because I enjoy reading just about anything about Tiger. That said, I must say I was rather disapointed in this particular read. Not much original thought or insight to be found here. I was rather amused at the author's efforts to use every arcane and obscure golf term he could think of. He was a bit like a "name dropper" but in this case, he used "golf jargon" rather than celebrities. I also found I extremely difficult to follow the sequence of events. The chronology did not always work out. (I do wonder why publishers do not use editors anymore???? If I had one I certainly would not be misspelling so many words). Often times I found one event or one bit of information referred to differently, even in the same paragraph. All in all, I have read better.


Raising The Bar   April 12, 2001
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Boring. Boring. Boring.

I almost gave up on the book after about 30 pages, but it was given to me as a gift and I like to finish that which I start.

If this book had to be written (?) then it should have been written by someone who could at least hold your attention, if not excite.

Tim Rosaforte shows little writing talent and one wonders what he is doing to raise his own bar. His readers and Tiger deserve better.

Having read John Feinstein and having grown up with the writings of Jim Murray perhaps my bar is set too high.

To anyone who wants to take a chance on this book I recommend the public library.


Even Tiger Junkies Will Be Disappointed   April 6, 2001
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I have seen Tim Rosaforte on the Golf Channel and read an excerpt in Golf Digest so I was looking forward to this book. There were so many errors and typos--misspellings, wrong words, one whole section out of place--that it was hard to concentrate on the text. Many of the quotes were simply taken from Golf Channel interviews and shows. There was little evidence of research. It was clear that this book was designed to make money by capitalizing on Tiger's celebrity and was rushed to print while we were still talking about the 2000 season. Do publishers have editors and proofreaders any more? Save your money.


Wait till they lower the price or hire a proofreader.....   February 13, 2001
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I was genuinely distracted from the content as I found myself reading every page "looking for more typos, inaccurate facts, etc". Many are noted in previous reviews....Butch Harmon is referred to as Bruce....David Duval is later called Davis....etc. I do not know the publishing process but I would think an author should have a vested interested in proofing his product....as well as many others. It is obviously an effort to cash in (the book itself had interesting facts, if you can trust themmmmm)......but also seemed disjointed and like it was slapped together without connection between chapters....bottom line - an inferior quality product given it is a 24 dollar hardcopy new book......wait for the next revision......