Off Course

February 4, 2010  
Filed under Opinion

Tiger Woods thinks I am stupid. Not only that, he thinks everyone is stupid. He thinks that two statements with a lot of words that do not really say anything is enough to be left alone. He thinks that he has a right be the first athlete to make a billion dollars, bring his family to sporting events and kiss them after he wins the Masters, yet also to demand privacy when people find out that he cheated on his wife. He thinks that the public is stupid enough to accept his brief statements on his website and then leave him alone. He honestly thinks that he can advertise himself in order to make money and then turn away from the public eye. His actions the last couple of weeks have shown how wrong he really is.

In Florida, if the police suspect any domestic violence, they may question anyone, as the law reads, “the decision to arrest and charge shall not require the consent of the victim or consideration of the relationship of the parties.” That means that if they really wanted to, they surely could have questioned Tiger. When the police asked him for a statement he declined multiple times, and the police

That has not stopped people from finding out about the events that night. And what has been uncovered is too much to suggest this was a simple traffic accident. It has to be nearly impossible to crash your car out of the driveway that you have backed out of every day of your life without having some other factor impairing your ability to drive. It is even stranger that Tiger managed to crash his car hard enough to knock himself out without deploying the air bags. And police reports indicated that he was out for 5-6 minutes, which is a very long time to be unconscious. Not to mention the cuts on his face, broken car windows, the fact that his neighbors reported to the police that he was sleeping, or why he was out at 2:30 in the morning without shoes.

Because Tiger refuses to address any of these issues, speculation continues about what happened that night. His decision has been made based on a need for privacy, and many of his fellow golfers and members of the media have jumped to his defense, saying that whatever happened is a family issue and should be dealt with internally. I would agree with this if Tiger had been remotely genuine in his apology. The truth is that he only issued an apology several hours after an incriminating voicemail leaked, and even then he did it through his website, instead of in person. This is a cowardly approach, and really robs him of any dignity he could have had once this issue is resolved. Kobe Bryant held a press conference when he was facing rape charges and he was able to get out in front of the media, and eventually repair his image. Now, several years later, Kobe is seen as a champion, not a cheater.

The bottom line is that Tiger Woods always controlled his image. He only spoke briefly to the press and never commented on sensitive issues. When he was faced with a crisis, he took the same approach. This was a critical mistake on his part. The Tiger Woods way may work with a small group of golf writers after a tournament, but TMZ doesn’t play by the same rules. Tiger thought he could just brush over his transgressions; that he was too famous to be bothered. This is the same arrogance that led him to cheat on his wife multiple times while he had small children. If he had handled it properly, this could have just been a blip on the radar, a slight misstep in his fabulous career. Instead Tiger committed a different offence, not adultery, but vanity.

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Schuyler Foulke

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