In the late 1990s, Tiger Woods accomplished a feat many thought impossible – he made golf look cool. Athletic, intense, charismatic and black, he seemed to reinvent a game that had previously been the domain of conservative white guys who looked more like mortgage brokers than world-class athletes. Watching Woods storm the sedate greens of Augusta, one could imagine a whole new generation taking up clubs – kids who would otherwise only have stepped onto the golf course to cut the grass.

And then, in 2009, Tiger wrecked his car while fleeing his Florida mansion in the middle of the night, his club-wielding Swedish wife in hot pursuit. Stories of compulsive adultery soon emerged, followed by a humiliating public apology and a course of behaviour modification at the Gentle Path rehab clinic.