Bill Walsh A "Mentor" to Tiger Woods

by Mulligan Stu on Jul 30, 2007 5:05 PM EDT Comment 0 comments

Photo by Gary Newkirk / Golf Digest

Sad news from the world of football today: Bill Walsh, the legendary offensive genius and coach of the San Francisco 49ers, has passed away at the age of 75 after a long battle with leukemia.

SBN's 49ers blog, Niners Nation, has news coverage of Walsh's death and retrospectives on his career.

The photo (via Golf Digest) shows Walsh and Tiger Woods in 2006 at the opening of the Tiger Woods Learning Center in Anaheim, Calif. Walsh was an important figure in Woods' life owing to a friendship that blossomed when the freshman Woods walked into Walsh's office at the University of Stanford - where Walsh was coaching at the time - and asked to talk.

Walsh also had a love affair with golf, described in an article by Mark Soltau:

While football was his life, Walsh developed a passion for golf. He owns a home on the Monterey Peninsula and loves playing.

"Anybody who has seen golf -- it's the most skilled or athletic sports event," he said recently. "There is the incredibly challenging mental aspect, and you spend tedious long hours practicing."

In 1992, when Walsh returned to coaching at Stanford University, he was overseeing a spring practice one afternoon and called me over. I was covering the team for a local newspaper and had played competitive golf since I was a kid.

"Can you watch me hit a few balls?" he asked.

"Sure," I said. "When?"

"Now," said Walsh.

He wasn't kidding. Walsh turned practice over to an assistant and led me to his car, where we made a quick trip to the Stanford driving range.

It was 1994 when Woods first approached Walsh:

Walsh was sitting in his office one day when a skinny freshman walked into his office.

"Hi, Mr. Walsh," he said. "It's great to meet you. I'm Tiger Woods."

They bonded instantly.

"I felt sort of privileged to meet him," Walsh said. "He wanted to know a lot about football. After a while, we talked about other things like politics and Stanford. When you spoke with him, even at 19, he was a mature adult. He almost conversed better with adults."

Woods has spoken often of the influence Walsh had on him. But perhaps in that Soltau article he said it best and most succinctly:

"He was my mentor," said Woods. "That's 100 percent, bona fide truth."

You can honor Walsh by making a donation in his memory to the The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, or to the Tiger Woods Foundation that Walsh supported so strongly.