Crowd Pleaser

If he weren't someone who carries out his missions like a Saturday-morning action hero, Tiger Woods could have been expected to hit the wall at last week's B.C. Open. The B.C. is the PGA Tour at its least glamorous. The tournament is played in Endicott, a suburb of economically depressed Binghamton in upstate New York, at En-Joie Golf Club, an austere public track high on hospitality but low on ambience. "Life looks hard around here," said Woods after cruising around town in the Ford Explorer provided by the tournament.

Woods came to Endicott overgolfed and nearly overwhelmed by his burgeoning celebrity. Counting the U.S. Amateur, in which he played 164 holes in six days, Woods was beginning his fifth straight week of competition. His most recent outing had been a demoralizing tie for fifth at the Quad City Classic in Coal Valley, Ill., where he lost a three-stroke lead in the final round. In addition to the self-induced pressure of trying to earn his Tour card, Woods has had to contend with a crush of interviews, book deals, business propositions and autograph seekers. Well-mannered, with a flashbulb smile, Woods has become the Fresh Prince of golf, but while trudging through the hallway of the Binghamton Regency early last week, he felt more like a stale knight errant. "This is my house," he said facetiously. "Do you like my house? It's got a lot of rooms. It's got maids. It's got elevators. The only problem is I have to move into another one just like it every week."

Yet the kid is reveling in his new life as a pro. "It's been a blur," he says of the last few weeks. "Some of it has been a shock, but this is what I've prepared for, and the upside is way bigger than the downside."

MONDAY: Woods has a way of turning negatives into positives. The final-round debacle at Quad City was put into a healthy perspective at a Sunday-night dinner with his father, Earl, swing coach Butch Harmon, manager Hughes Norton, and best friend Bryon Bell, also 20 and a premed student at UC San Diego. "By dessert we were laughing about how bad I blew it," Woods says. "What I did is part of a learning process. I've done it before. If that's my last time, great. But it probably won't be. In golf, you lose more than you win."

Before leaving Coal Valley, Woods says goodbye to his father, who has traveled with him since the Amateur but is now returning home to Cypress, Calif. Tiger flies to Binghamton on a chartered jet—he will probably lease his own soon—with Norton and Clarke Jones, another agent from International Management Group. Once he has checked into a 10th-floor suite at the Regency, he works out at a local health club. At 6'2", Woods weighs only 158 pounds, but there is nothing frail about him. With broad shoulders, prominent biceps and a 28-inch waist, he resembles Thomas Hearns, the fighter. Woods breezes through multiple sets of incline presses with 65-pound barbells and does squats with as much as 250 pounds. He ends the workout with 500 crunches to gird his lower back against the forces of the explosive rotation in his swing. "I'm stronger than I look," he says with pride while posing for photos with giddy health club employees.

TUESDAY: After 10 hours of sleep Woods gets up early to get his first look at the En-Joie course, but a heavy rain floods the layout and it is closed to practice rounds. In the afternoon Woods and his agents meet with Nike executives, who bring several boxes of apparel. Woods selects some two-tone shirts with block color patterns. The shirts could become part of the Swoosh 18 line Nike is preparing for him. One end of the living room in Woods's suite is strewn with boxes of shirts, slacks, sweaters and shoes, the other with a half-dozen putters that he compulsively uses to stroke balls at table legs.

After the meeting Woods is philosophical. "Sometimes it's hard to remember that I'm calling the shots," he says. "Butch has already told me I have to be strong enough to say no and tell people who are working for me what to do, including him. In a way I've gone from being a college sophomore to a mini-CEO. It's kind of hard. I mean, I'm 20 years old. But I know it's the way things have to be or my life will be a mess."

WEDNESDAY: Norton and Jones leave in the morning. Norton will return on Sunday to accompany Woods to Orlando, where he will finally get a look at his new house, a villa at Isleworth where his neighbors are Arnold Palmer, Mark McCormack and Mark O'Meara as well as Shaquille O'Neal, Ken Griffey Jr. and Wesley Snipes. Woods also plans to test drive a Lexus SC400, a coupe that appeals to him because, he says, it is understated yet powerful. "And the trunk is big enough to hold my golf clubs," he says. But for now, for the first time since before the Amateur, he is on the road alone.

Woods confesses that he doesn't really feel like a pro, or rich, despite the reported $60 million worth of deals he has struck with Nike and Titleist. All the money goes into the recently formed Tiger Woods Inc., of which he is chairman and his father is president. Although Woods pays himself a salary, he says a $10 Nassau still seems like a big-money game. He confesses that in pretournament shoot-outs—he won the one at Quad City—he grinds hard to make birdies because they pay $100 each. "You know when I feel like a pro?" he says. "On one-foot tap-ins. I used to kind of one-hand them in. Now when I start to do that I stop and think. Hey, this is money."

Before his only practice round at En-Joie, which will come during the pro-am, Woods goes to the range. He is friendly but low key with the other players, aware that he is constantly being judged. So far his closest confidants are Davis Love III, who also works with Harmon, and Woody Austin, last year's PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, with whom Woods has played several practice rounds.