It's that single-name-icon thing.

"I can count on one hand the number of people known all over the world by one name. Bono. Elvis. Gandhi. Prince. And Tiger, of course." Bestselling author Jeff Benedict, a Waterford native and Lyme resident, is explaining why — even though he doesn't like golf, has never played golf and had only rarely seen Tiger Woods play — he sprang at the chance to collaborate on a biography of the athlete.

"That status was the appeal to me. You could be in Iceland, Australia — anywhere on the planet — and people know who they are. And any individual who has that force, that cross-cultural magnetism, that fascinates me," Benedict says.

Titled simply "Tiger Woods" and co-written with Benedict's longtime friend and fellow journalist Armen Keteyian, the biography hit bookstores earlier this week. It should, in terms of bestseller charts and "have you read THIS yet?!" buzz, explode in huge fashion.

Benedict will discuss and sign copies of "Tiger Woods" at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Madison's R.J. Julia Bookstore. He'll also sign copies at 5 p.m. April 15 at New London's Garde Arts Center, when the theater screens the film "Little Pink House," based on Benedict's book about the Fort Trumbull eminent domain case.

Woods is arguably the greatest athlete of his time, a scalpel-focused shot magician with indomitable will who, for years, dominated golf in a way that's frankly difficult to believe or comprehend. He's also, for many and often queasy reasons, an incredibly complex, divisive and compelling personality in a way that extends beyond mere sport and into every corner of popular culture.

Single-Name Idol, indeed.

This explains why even folks who don't follow golf — like Benedict before he entered the "Tiger Woods" project — were at least marginally aware of the athlete's nonpareil accomplishments, aloof demeanor, warrior's discipline and strict code of seemingly above-reproach conduct.

It also explains the significance of Thanksgiving night, 2009. That's when a bleary Woods, woozy with the Ambien that helped with his insomnia, escaped his own mansion after his wife, Elin, had just discovered proof of just one of what would turn out to be serial infidelities. Woods wrecked his SUV, possibly lost his front teeth in what might have been spousal retaliation, and police and medical personnel were summoned.

With that triggering incident, and through the subsequent, determined and relentless scrutiny of modern journalism — both traditional and tabloid — years' worth of Woodsian lies and debauchery started to become exposed in the fashion of fingers extracting the slimy innards of a scooped pumpkin.

"What I knew about Tiger was what the rest of the world knew about him," Benedict says. "He was the greatest who ever lived, and there was a scandalous downfall — maybe the most precipitous downfall of any athlete in modern times. THEN we started the project. I didn't like him or dislike him; I was pretty agnostic about him, which was probably a good thing. But what interested us was how and why did he get there?"

Separately or (mostly) together, Benedict and Keteyian read 20 books about Woods, including two by the golfer himself. They also read hundreds of profiles and interviews. If it's been written or discussed in any media about Woods, Benedict and Keteyian have digested it. They also conducted over 400 of interviews and in fact spent one year devoted exclusively to constructing a detailed timeline of Woods' life. About half of the interviews were done with a provision of anonymity, including many with professional golfers or prominent folks associated with the Professional Golf Association.

"For a lot of obvious reasons, many of those sources were more comfortable in the background," Benedict says. "It's also fair to say there were a lot of people we approached who wouldn't talk. They were afraid of possible repercussions froom Woods or that he would be mad."

Benedict adds that he and Keteyian were amazed at the number of potential sources who legally couldn't talk because they'd signed non-disclosure agreements — "far more than Armen and I had separately or together encountered in any project."

No, Woods was not interviewed for the book, though the authors certainly asked.

"We anticipated from the beginning that he probably wouldn't talk to us," Benedict says. "And the more we got into the research, the more I understood why he wouldn't want to talk to us. In addition, this is a guy who, since he was a kid, has had a microphone or a pen or a camera in his face. The appeal is probably sub-zero. But we did ask and, in the 100-to-one chance he'd have agreed, he would have known we'd done our homework."

Throughout the research process, one huge thing stood out.

"There just wasn't much information on his formative years," Benedict says. "There's plenty of information about Tiger's relationship with his father, of course, but there had never been in-depth accounts of his home life, his childhood and relationships with teachers, friends or early girlfriends ... What happened during those years?

"That period is so huge in a person's development. As a biographer, that's where I wanted to be. I didn't want to be at the Masters because that's been written about. I wanted to be in (Tiger's hometown of) Cypress, California, with this lonely kid and the only mixed-race couple in the neighborhood — a kid whose only activity, period, was to practice golf from the time he was 2 years old."

Woods' father, Earl (now deceased), was black and a retired Green Beret. For years, he was an omnipresent force whose fame almost rivalled Tiger's, after his son became a successful amateur and then pro. Before that, Earl's sole focus was in preparing Tiger for a career in golf. This included not just constant lessons and practice but also, from Tiger's post-infancy, the sort of psych-ops Special Forces mind-games more associated with interrogating prisoners of war. Earl frequently told any and all media members his son was destined to have more world influence than Nelson Mandela or Buddha.

Make no mistake, Woods idolized and loved his father, but the old man's pressure to excel was tremendous. Too, his father's extracurricular hobbies and addictions — drink, womanizing and/or porn — set other examples.

Much less was known about Tiger's Thai mother, Kutida, who met Earl Woods when he was stationed in Bangkok. She eventually came with him to the States, where they got married. Kutida doted on her only son in a different fashion but was every bit as influential in Tiger's development. His love for her is just as fierce, if perhaps in a different way. She walked thousands of rounds with Woods well into his career, smothering him with support and, from early on, instilling within him an assassin's competitiveness. With quiet viciousness, Kutida taught Tiger it wasn't enough just to win; he was to crush an opponent and "eat his heart."

The book details how both parents did their "jobs" remarkably well in these regards — and, along with becoming the greatest golfer who ever lived, Wood became a supreme narcissist. Among other character traits, his definition of friendship was cruelly one-sided and invariably attached to a "best discarded by" date of perceived usefulness. Woods also lacked any core sense of social decency — whether to say hello or express gratitude; leave a tip or acknowledge a service worker or golf course employee; provide restitution to a woman whose house he trashed while staying there during the Masters; fulfill committed obligations if he wasn't in the mood; or interact beyond the minimum during a round of golf with former president Bill Clinton.

Even Woods' concept of romance was stunted. He did have a few early "first-love" situations before marrying Elin, but they were bizarrely ended when either Woods or possibly his parents decided the relationships were counter to his success as an athlete.

"I actually felt sadness for Tiger when I researched those early years," Benedict says. "I was very empathetic about what I was learning and seeing. If I'd known nothing about Tiger Woods, I could still see what was going to happen to him as an adult, and I felt obligated to craft the book so there was empathy, to write it with more sympathy than judgment." Benedict pauses. "It's tempting to say Tiger is easy to dislike when you're only looking at the actions of his life rather than the cause. It's the burden of the biographer to explain the WHY of the story. That's more interesting than the WHAT of the story."

To that extent, Benedict and Keteyian — whose eariler collaborative book together, "The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football" established a precedent for easy narrative flow and impeccable research — have done a stunning job in "Tiger Woods."

The dozens of cringe-worthy depictions of Woods' selfishness, cruelty, self-indulgence and near-sociopathic self-absorption are reported in decidedly non-sensationalist fashion. At the same time, Wood's distinctive achievements on the golf course are recounted in a way that staggers even folks who watched his career in real-time. Finally, Woods' climb out of the humiliating pit of his failures — including stints in sex-addiction and painkiller rehab — are detailed with accuracy and fairness and end the book with a note of warm optimism. 

Asked whether millennials — in general or even just the younger pro golfers today — appreciate the magnitude of Woods' on-course prowess, Benedict says, "Certainly, the generation he's competing against now don't know it. They'll say they watched as kids, but they still don't KNOW. We wrote in a way to try to give readers an idea of how scarily good he was and might again be. There are very few athletes of any era who competed on his level; he did things with a golf club no one's ever done or likely will do."

Benedict thinks a moment. "As a guy who doesn't play golf, I think Woods is every bit on the level of a Shakesperean play. If you can't see that, it's a shame. To me, the literary comparison is more accurate than any sports statistics. We don't know a lot about what Mozart went through or Van Gogh. We can listen to the music or look at the art without knowing the extent of the pain they suffered or experienced on the path to genius. Of all the billions of people in the world, very few are absolutely the best at one thing, and most of them existed before our time. It's remarkable to think we lived through Tiger's fundamental flaws, and what I hope is that we'll remember the genius."

If you go

Who: Jeff Benedict

What: Waterford native, Lyme resident and New York Times bestselling author discusses and signs copies of "Tiger Woods," the just-published biography he co-wrote with Armen Keteyian

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday 

Where: R.J. Julia Bookseller, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison

How much: Free, books available for purchase

For more information: (203) 245-3959

Who: Jeff Benedict

What: screening of the film "Little Pink House," based on Benedict's book about the New London/Fort Trumbull emiment domain case

When: 5 p.m. April 15

Where: Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London

How much: $20-$25; copies of "Little Pink House," "Tiger Woods" and more Benedict titles available for purchase

For more information: (860) 444-7373