Tiger Woods apologizing for not being a virtuous golfer is totally implausible. but let me explain. Try this on for implausible.
Imagine if Mother Teresa was little known to be a fair golfer. Imagine that she lost the Sisters of Charity PGA with such bad temper, throwing her clubs in the lake, that she was forced to step aside from all her charity work while the scandal played out. Imagine that as she went on retreat, word slowly leaked out that she had lost other major charity tournaments too, punched officials, and regularly ran her caddy off the course. Imagine her Order hushing it all up, and then the public shock, that the saintly lady was simply not the nice golfer we just presumed her to be. Saints play nice, we thought.
Now that is what I mean by implausible.
It is as mad to expect Mother Teresa to be a saintly golfer as it is to expect Tiger Woods to be a golfing saint. I know, the cry is “role model, role model” and even Tiger added that to his litany of supposed sins, that he had let the young kids down. But who told him that? Not any kids I know.
Kids will take up golf at 5 years old because they have seen the cute video of Tiger at that age. But where did his pretensions of such singular virtue come from? Someone in rehab must be feeding his delusions of being the Mother Teresa of Augusta, all to deepen his shame. Twelve Step doesn’t work, they say, unless you hit the deepest rough called Rock Bottom. You wrecked your marriage, you cad!!!! How bad do you feel? But get this-You wrecked millions of kids lives too! Now how bad do you feel?
We all want our sports stars to be nice human beings, for sure, but that is not what attracts our homage. It is the home runs they hit, the passes they throw or catch, the 30 foot impossible putts they sink. If we confuse virtuosity on the field with virtue in the play of life, then that is surely our fault, not theirs.
But of course, along come sponsors with check books in hand. They want to buy a piece of the legend. They burnish the player’s image to esteem their own products. They know that Tiger’s demographic is universal, and even grandmothers adore him playing. He has to be “every mother’s son.” But it is all a pure marketing exercise.
Tiger probably couldn’t care a dime for these products before they offered to pay him 40 million to care. Who wouldn’t sell their smile for that? The Faustian bargain is, “We make you look good. You make us look good. Just keep on winning majors.”
Then the wheels fall off and the poor wife and family have to deal with lies and human appetites gone awry, and a marriage wrecked, or so it would seem. And that is truly a tragedy within the personal circle of his family and friends. But what has it to do with me or my kids, or anyone else for that matter? Role model for golf-yes. Soul model for Life? You’re kdding me!
It can only come down to the sponsors feeding the media. They have paid top dollar. They need to recoup their money. They desperately need Tiger’s soul washed clean, spun dry and recycled to get back him back on the course, trailing tales of glory about scoring again, but on the greens this time.
That for mine is the sorry and sordid truth of the apology. It was as sincere as the sponsors could make it, and as profound as those smarmy journalists who sounded off like modern day inquisitors because, boo hoo, they were not invited. Who knew sports journalists were moral philosophers and marriage counsellors.
So Tiger, I want to apologize to you on behalf of your adoring public. Sincerely. I know this has been a hard time for all of us but I do ask you to leave our families out of this, and not to hound them but blame us alone. This is totally our fault. Alright. It is not an excuse, but we have been under all sorts of pressure. The media have been provoking us, saying ‘Tiger will never come back. He’s washed up, the greatest “could have been champion” in history. ‘ We wanted to smack them so hard with a 9 iron, and we would have if it weren’t for our faith. In you.
We so desperately want to be able to tell our kids we actually saw you play. We want you to get your mojo back. I know most of us have had our flings, and screwed up, but the world didn’t care. And we would have loved for you to have been offered the same privacy, but we had no choice. We had to put you through this ritual humiliation, and we are deeply, (pause for breath) deeply sorry. How else could we work out a way for us to come back and watch you play, and not have someone screaming in our ear that we were condoning your sexual promiscuity, or dissing your wife and all betrayed women. We just want so bad to see you play again and win. So do your 12 steps, make amends and all, and come back with an improved swing, so we can get back to our weekends of watching you play, having time away from our screaming kids, and drinking with the boys. You’ve been our role model all along. Don’t let us down.