Friday, February 19, 2010

If I Had Putted Well ...

I coulda been a contenda ... I played nine at The Lakes, making solid
contact on one, two, three, five, six, seven and nine, and putting
like a chump. I botched birdie putts all over the place but had
a good time nonetheless. And I made a fairly spectacular 20 footer
(after having choked on the first putt).

As for The Golfing Robot: Really? People are actually doling out credit
to The Philanderer for his bravery, for the guts he displayed? Really?
What information did he impart today that the world did not already
know, which "I'm sorry" today was different than the ones he posted
on his website? And am I the only one who found it more than audacious—
found it, in fact, galling—that he acted as though the media had sullied
the image of his family, saying that he has always kept them out of the public
eye (I call bullshit, Tiger: Those images of you in front of the fireplace
playing with the dog, your family sitting next to you, and the ubiquitous
shot of you cradling your newborn—you sold those images, Tiger, sold us a
bill of goods in the process, made your family life public so that you could
sell more products, and you relinquished your right to privacy and certainly to self-
righteousness along the way). If I'm not supposed to care who you fuck, then why
should I care if you're married or that you have children and a dog or that you
wear a certain watch, drive a certain car, use a certain golf ball, etc? You
can't earn 90 percent of your income off the course, then say that the only things
that matter are your actions inside the ropes. It doesn't work that way. It's a bit
like getting married, then screwing anyone you want ... including your fans and your sponsors.

I don't buy for a second that it took guts to reveal that he only blames himself. Who else could he blame? The media made me do it? He answered none of the questions (and I don't mean "who did you bang, when and where?) that matter to even Tiger apologists, namely which issues are you battling and how will those issues affect your golf game and when will we see your golf game, and if you have no answers to these questions, why am I watching this today?

What he told us was that he's sorry. Wow, that's truly earth-shattering. Then he blamed the media for speculating about what happened "that night." If you'd stepped up like an actual person, rather than an image generated ... ahem ... by the same media that did your bidding today for free and the same media that allowed you to create that image, we wouldn't have needed this canned, scripted, uninformative apology at all. Had he answered the police officer's questions, the officers who tried to speak with him three days in a row, no one would have speculated about anything.

By the way, this guy didn't see the light, didn't step up and do the right thing when his conscience got heavy: He was caught. Do you think he had confided in Elin, told her of his affairs, of his failings, of his belief that since he could hit golf balls well that no rules applied to him? I'm guessing not, since the National Enquirer story happened to come out two days before the fire-hydrant/tree incident.

Do I believe his story? Oh, wait, he didn't tell us a story. We still don't know what happened, do we? How does a guy generate that kind of speed backing out of his driveway, and how does a guy crash twice, once in the front of his vehicle, once in the back, without either doing so intentionally to cover up something else that may have caused the lacerations on his face or without being drunk? Next time he's in front of a camera, I wonder if he'll say anything? He never really has before, being widely recognized as one of the worst interviews in sports. Of course, he had a chance to "man up" today, and he didn't. One does not address issues of addiction by not being forthright. But he'll learn that soon enough.


The only moment of truth I thought he displayed today was when he admitted that he had a problem. But then he didn't tell us what that problem was. A double-bogey at best.

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2 comments:

  1. Why all the anger directed at him? Certainly there gave been other athletes who have cheated on their spouses. I don't condone what he did, but I really don't care that much about it. I just want him to golf again.

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