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The obsessive child prodigy still calibrates the details of his life to maintain a Zen-like calm. "There are things in your life that you don't feel are quite right, so you change them," he told TIME. "And you've got to tweak them every day--because it's very easy to get out of balance and not have everything exactly as you would like to have it. It could be that you're sleeping too much or not sleeping enough. Or you're not eating enough or eating too much. You've just got to keep the right balance." Friends say he does. "He's more open and more accepting," says Mark O'Meara. "I'm proud of him as a friend for the way he's conducting himself off the course." At 24, Tiger's still evolving. "Each year I've learned that much more about myself. I guarantee I'll be a totally different person next year from who I am now."
Tiger is building a new home in Isleworth, Fla., and has found a steady companion in Joanna Jagoda, 22, a law student at Pepperdine University. They met on a blind date. "She's a good girl," Woods says. Jagoda has adjusted to the cameras and scrutiny. "It takes time to understand--you've got to experience it," Tiger says. "It's not an easy life, but we've gone through it pretty good." But he professes to have no "timeline" for marriage or kids: "When the time is right, you'll know it."
His passions remain prosaic. Between tournaments, he passes time by fly-fishing, playing video games--preferably ones with "a bit of fighting and a bit of blood"--and watching sports with his friends. But he rarely sits still. Before dismantling the field at the British Open, he went salmon fishing in Ireland with O'Meara. The week after his triumph, Tiger scuba-dived in the Bahamas. Like Jordan, he will place a friendly wager on just about anything--but forget about getting him to pay up. Kelly Manos, one of Woods' childhood golf partners, won $20 from Tiger the last time they played together, in 1995. Manos hasn't seen the cash: "Whenever I ask him about it, he always says, 'I'll play you for it.'" As a betting man, he can get excited when discussing the stock market, reveling in a couple of recent winners. "Anytime you can pick a stock...that grows 50%, you feel pretty good," Tiger says.
And when you can pick the pockets of the world's best golfers anytime you're on the course with them, that must feel pretty good too. Also, it is surely gratifying to know that you can make any child's day by merely flashing a smile or a wink. The danger will come if Tiger copes with the planet's increasing demands on him by turning inward. When asked by TIME, Woods said he doesn't worry much about how the public perceives him. "When I'm out there, in life in general, I just want to be me. Tiger Woods. The person I am. That's all I need to do."
He's right. Most of us don't need him to be a savior or a hero or a role model. We simply want the spectacle: Tiger gliding down the fairway, Tiger hitting rainmaker drives, Tiger pummeling his opponents and then putting his arm around them, Tiger hugging his mom. If he turns and winks back at us every once in a while, that will be good enough.