Tiger Woods will be the latest sports star to receive the multi-part documentary treatment.
As reported by GOLF.com’s Josh Berhow, HBO is developing a two-part documentary that’s expected to air in the fall. The film will be based on Armen Keteyian and Jeff Benedict’s best-selling 2018 biography, Tiger Woods, and the authors are executive producers on the project.
(Tip of the cap to our colleague Jay Rigdon, who suggested Tiger in Awful Announcing’s roundtable discussion of which athlete or team warranted a docuseries like The Last Dance.)
Keteyian announced the project on the Burst Your Bubble podcast, revealing the HBO documentary will consist of two two-hour episodes and is produced by documentarian Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions. (The premium cable network has not released an official announcement itself.)
“I can tell you that it’s scheduled to come out in the fall,” Keteyian told hosts Josh Owen and Donaldson, via GOLF.com. “Don’t be surprised if it airs right around The Masters in November. If you are HBO, that’s the smartest and best place to do it. I can tell you this, I have seen it now several times, including this morning when I watched the final two hours. It’s a fabulous job.”
Among those appearing in the documentary are Nick Faldo and Bryant Gumbel, in addition to journalists like the New York Times‘ Karen Crouse of the New York Times, and Alan Shipnuck and Michael Bamberger from GOLF magazine.
Matthew Hamachek and Matthew Heineman will be the film’s directors. Hamachek has produced several documentaries, including The Fourth Estate and The Family Business: Trump and Taxes for Showtime, and the upcoming Console Wars. This will be the first documentary he directs (or c0-directs). Heineman most recently directed Showtime’s docuseries The Trade, which explored the opioid epidemic and human trafficking in its two seasons.
In May 2019, Deadline reported that Benedict was developing a Tiger Woods scripted miniseries based on the biography. No word on where that particular project stands or if the documentary has essentially replaced it with the popularity of non-scripted films like ESPN’s The Last Dance.
Keteyian talks plenty more about Woods’s career in the Burst Your Bubble interview, the process of writing the biography — including who he wishes he could’ve spoken to (the authors interviewed more than 250 people) — and criticism that the book received. Burst Your Bubble is available on several podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Anchor.
[GOLF.com]
About Ian Casselberry
Ian is a writer, editor, and podcaster. You can find his work at Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He's written for Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation.