December 7, 2009
The Harder They Fall I was a Tiger Woods fan. We all were. Even if you pulled for other players, or didn’t like his arrogance, we all envied and respected his command of the most difficult of games. Beyond his godlike talents on the golf course he seemed to be a modern version of the classic American hero. Sure he was of mixed race and wore flashy Nike shirts but in many ways Tiger was the embodiment of one of the heroes of yesteryear. Unlike his contemporary peers, he never suffered from public scandal or went on TV to air out emotional confessions. In many ways Tiger Woods was cut from the cloth of Ward Cleaver or Gary Cooper. The strong, silent American male. A man who seemed to have it all and then some. This public facade was shattered when last Friday Tiger crashed his luxury car outside of his Orlando mansion and changed his life forever. It reminded me of the scene at the start of Seven Pounds when Will Smith destroys his fairytale life with one simple lapse of judgment behind the wheel. At first we all hoped Tiger was OK and constantly hit refresh on our internet browsers to try and get the latest information. 10 days later and the sporting World’s brightest star has been destroyed by his own hubris. Apparently the billionaire needed more than the Swedish supermodel and the adulation of millions. After rejecting his father’s advice and marrying before 30 he went on to treat the institution of marriage as a complete and utter sham. If the rumours are true he has been cheating on his wife since the year they were married and has been doing it with a rotation of white blondes. The latest one to come forward is a 36 year old porn star named Holly Sampson who has starred in such classics as Cheating Housewives 6 and MILF Date 3. Despite all this I have no doubt in my mind that Tiger will bounce back from this scandal. One day in the not so distant future he will win that 19th major and pass Jack Nicklaus as the greatest golfer of all time. Not so long ago I looked forward to this day with great anticipation because for my generation Tiger is someone we have watched from the beginning. I can remember him winning the 1997 Masters, vividly, and seeing a sport and a belief system change in the course of a weekend. I can remember his dominating 2000 campaign when it did not seem farfetched that he might never lose another golf tournament. I remember Pebble and Augusta, St. Andrews and Torrey Pines, each adding another notch in the belt of this greatest of champions. Little did we all know that Tiger was busy adding notches to another less noble belt. As the dreadful rumours continue to spread we can all rest assured that Tiger Woods was not the perfect specimen that the media presented him as. Not the image that we all gobbled up after years of being disappointed by our fallible heroes. People like Bill Clinton and Michael Jordan who had seemed and then had been revealed as too good to be true. We wanted Tiger to be non-human, he of the comic book hero name and the mental toughness of a robot. Before last week our biggest complaint with him was that he swore too often. The one thing I find shocking in all this is how long the serial adulterer was able to live this lifestyle undercover. If not for a wrecked Escallade and a scared neighbour, who knows how long this might have gone on for. How was this possible in the era of Youtube and TMZ? To me the thing reeks of duplicity from several different groups including the media. Not even the famously private Woods could have carried on like this for this long, without some media people treating his philandering the way their 60’s counterparts treated the transgressions (Tiger’s word not mine) of JFK. So the question remains what happens now? Will Tiger join the long list of American celebrities who apologize through a taped confessional with a television luminary (Apparently Oprah has made an offer). I doubt it, because as much as the suits at Nike and Buick must be pushing for this, it would be the opposite response I would expect from the super secretive Woods. I in fact think there is a chance that Tiger never comments on this whole episode. He might just carry on winning golf tournaments and just accept his now tarnished image in the public eye. And one day he will hit 19 and become the greatest ever and one day after that he will win his last tournament, retire, and walk away from the public eye forever. I used to think that I would share this moment with my son/daughter and be able to say, “Remember this moment kid, there goes the greatest golfer the World will ever see.” Instead, I can now picture myself staring at the screen in silence, feeling a pang of regret but not wanting to immortalize to my kids a man so morally corrupt. * I know this isn’t the most organized or cohesive of posts. These are just the ramblings of someone who recently lost one of their childhood heroes.

The Harder They Fall

I was a Tiger Woods fan. We all were. Even if you pulled for other players, or didn’t like his arrogance, we all envied and respected his command of the most difficult of games. Beyond his godlike talents on the golf course he seemed to be a modern version of the classic American hero. Sure he was of mixed race and wore flashy Nike shirts but in many ways Tiger was the embodiment of one of the heroes of yesteryear. Unlike his contemporary peers, he never suffered from public scandal or went on TV to air out emotional confessions. In many ways Tiger Woods was cut from the cloth of Ward Cleaver or Gary Cooper. The strong, silent American male. A man who seemed to have it all and then some.

This public facade was shattered when last Friday Tiger crashed his luxury car outside of his Orlando mansion and changed his life forever. It reminded me of the scene at the start of Seven Pounds when Will Smith destroys his fairytale life with one simple lapse of judgment behind the wheel. At first we all hoped Tiger was OK and constantly hit refresh on our internet browsers to try and get the latest information. 10 days later and the sporting World’s brightest star has been destroyed by his own hubris.

Apparently the billionaire needed more than the Swedish supermodel and the adulation of millions. After rejecting his father’s advice and marrying before 30 he went on to treat the institution of marriage as a complete and utter sham. If the rumours are true he has been cheating on his wife since the year they were married and has been doing it with a rotation of white blondes. The latest one to come forward is a 36 year old porn star named Holly Sampson who has starred in such classics as Cheating Housewives 6 and MILF Date 3.

Despite all this I have no doubt in my mind that Tiger will bounce back from this scandal. One day in the not so distant future he will win that 19th major and pass Jack Nicklaus as the greatest golfer of all time. Not so long ago I looked forward to this day with great anticipation because for my generation Tiger is someone we have watched from the beginning. I can remember him winning the 1997 Masters, vividly, and seeing a sport and a belief system change in the course of a weekend. I can remember his dominating 2000 campaign when it did not seem farfetched that he might never lose another golf tournament. I remember Pebble and Augusta, St. Andrews and Torrey Pines, each adding another notch in the belt of this greatest of champions.

Little did we all know that Tiger was busy adding notches to another less noble belt. As the dreadful rumours continue to spread we can all rest assured that Tiger Woods was not the perfect specimen that the media presented him as. Not the image that we all gobbled up after years of being disappointed by our fallible heroes. People like Bill Clinton and Michael Jordan who had seemed and then had been revealed as too good to be true. We wanted Tiger to be non-human, he of the comic book hero name and the mental toughness of a robot. Before last week our biggest complaint with him was that he swore too often.

The one thing I find shocking in all this is how long the serial adulterer was able to live this lifestyle undercover. If not for a wrecked Escallade and a scared neighbour, who knows how long this might have gone on for. How was this possible in the era of Youtube and TMZ? To me the thing reeks of duplicity from several different groups including the media. Not even the famously private Woods could have carried on like this for this long, without some media people treating his philandering the way their 60’s counterparts treated the transgressions (Tiger’s word not mine) of JFK.

So the question remains what happens now? Will Tiger join the long list of American celebrities who apologize through a taped confessional with a television luminary (Apparently Oprah has made an offer). I doubt it, because as much as the suits at Nike and Buick must be pushing for this, it would be the opposite response I would expect from the super secretive Woods. I in fact think there is a chance that Tiger never comments on this whole episode. He might just carry on winning golf tournaments and just accept his now tarnished image in the public eye.

And one day he will hit 19 and become the greatest ever and one day after that he will win his last tournament, retire, and walk away from the public eye forever. I used to think that I would share this moment with my son/daughter and be able to say, “Remember this moment kid, there goes the greatest golfer the World will ever see.” Instead, I can now picture myself staring at the screen in silence, feeling a pang of regret but not wanting to immortalize to my kids a man so morally corrupt.

* I know this isn’t the most organized or cohesive of posts. These are just the ramblings of someone who recently lost one of their childhood heroes.

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