Did Jordan Rub Off On Tiger Woods?

With all that we’ve learned about Tiger Woods’ appetites for excess, is it any coincidence that he looked to Michael Jordan as his mentor?

↵It’s been a popular theory the past few months—that Jordan set the example for Tiger—and among a slew of insights into Tiger’s chaotic world, excerpts from next month’s much-ballyhooed Vanity Fair profile offer support for the Jordan theory:

↵↵“When Tiger showed up in Vegas, he was always with Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley,” according to Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Norm Clarke. Years earlier, however, John Merchant had warned Woods to avoid Jordan and Barkley, saying of Jordan, “Stay away from that son of a bitch, because he doesn’t have anything to offer to the fucking world in which he lives except playing basketball.” Merchant adds, “Are they his black role models? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

↵↵And that’s just one section of what, even in excerpted form, is probably as absorbing a story as you’ll read all day. (John Merchant, for those not versed in Tiger hysteria, was Woods’ lawyer.) The Woods narrative has been beaten into the ground for months now, and yet, as an ongoing study in mysterious character, it’s hard not to be mesmerized. Revel in it all here.