I was on the subway today and there was a guy reading from the Bible out loud and screaming about us judging Tiger Woods. I never quite got his point before my stop came up (so I don’t know if he was telling us to judge Tiger or not judge him). but with Tiger so much in the news, people have started to ask me about the commercial I did with him in 2000, for Nike Golf.

I started doing commercials in 1997. I had just sold Swingers to Miramax in a record sale (at the time) for an independent film, and that made me the flavor of the month (if not year) in Hollywood. The same week as that sale, my father went into the hospital for surgery on a tumor that was malignant and unrelenting.

I moved back home to spend as much time with my father as I could. I was, however, acutely aware that it would have broken his heart if I abandoned my career just as it was finally taking off, to spend time with him. So it was a godsend when producer Suzanne Preissler brought me an Airwalk commercial shortly after the sale of Swingers. This allowed me to work and capitalize on the momentum from the film without having to leave my father’s side for more than a couple of days at a time.

My first commercials were great fun to do and they launched a very successful commercial career. My father lived to see about 15 of them. The commercials also helped me develop the fast-paced filmmaking style that makes Go my favorite of all my movies. Shortly after Go I was asked to shoot second unit on a Tiger Woods commercial directed by Lasse Hallström for Nike Golf. During Lasse’s commercial Tiger Woods shows up to a driving range and suddenly everyone can hit straight and far, and when he walks away, everyone’s game goes to shit.

All they wanted from me was to operate a second camera — normally a job for a camera operator, not another director. But when you are an ad agency that gets Tiger for eight hours for like 40 million dollars (I’m making that number up, I have no idea the actual amount), they wanted a second director on a second camera that never looked away from Tiger.

Normally I would be insulted to be asked to do something like this but Lasse Hallström is one of my favorite directors of all time. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? is a masterpiece. I thought it would be a really special opportunity to watch a great director work. Also, my father and I had spent a lot of time during the last year of his life watching Tiger Woods play.

So I got to Florida to work for a day. I was given a camera and two ACs (assistant camera operators). Lasse had set up the whole scene — he told me where to put my camera, and all I had to do is point it at Tiger, and out of the corner of my eye watch and learn from Lasse. In between takes, while Lasse was running around arranging things (i.e., directing), Tiger and I just stood there, and he was bored, so he would juggle the golf ball on the end of his club.

During the lunch break, I had just gotten my tray of food when the guys from the agency came up to me, pointed over to Tiger who was eating at a different table, and said: “He technically doesn’t get a lunch break. The crew does, but Tiger does not.” The clock was ticking on his eight hours while the crew was on their union break. So they asked me if I wanted to make my own commercial with Tiger. They had heard all the stories from Swingers and Go, how I would go out sometimes literally with the camera and an actor (I shot a scene for Go where, because it was only the two of us, the actor had to roll the camera for me). They said I could have him for the next half hour until the crew was back from lunch.

I grabbed a camera, and I grabbed Tiger and suggested that he juggle the golf ball on the end of the club for 25 seconds and then hit it like a baseball for the finale. I only had about 20 minutes to shoot by the time I got him set up on a knoll. Worse, there was only about 350 feet of film in the camera, which was only good for about seven takes. I had no way to reload because the union ACs were on lunch.

So I called action, and Tiger was to start juggling while I filmed and counted out loud to 25 Mississippi. Except when I got to 22 Tiger flubbed and dropped the ball (I had watched him juggle it for at least ten minutes straight earlier in the day). We tried it again. Again he flubbed in the low 20s. I tried a new technique. Instead of counting out loud, I counted in my head and then yelled out 24, 25. At which point he flubbed and dropped the ball.

Finally, frustrated because we only had two takes left in the mag and about five minutes till lunch was over, I blurted out, “Gee, I never thought you, of all people, would choke under pressure.” The look he gave me terrified me. I thought his next move was gonna be to get back in the helicopter that brought him there that morning and leave, right then and there. And I would have to explain to my idol director what happened to his star.

Instead, Tiger said to me: “Roll the camera.” It was a challenge. I rolled the camera, counted quietly in my head till 20, counted the next five seconds out loud; Tiger whacked the ball perfectly on 25. That commercial went on to become a massive hit.

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