I’ll admit I wasn’t a big golf fan before Tiger Woods. I find golf to be a hobby, like darts or billiards. It’s a bit of fun to play and terribly boring to watch. Furthermore, I like to watch sports to cheer for someone. How the hell are you supposed to cheer for someone named Davis Love the Third?
Then along came someone who did the unthinkable. He made people think of golf as a sport. I can’t see the logic behind calling something a sport if the only time you break a sweat is when you are outside in the humidity of a July afternoon in Florida.
I don’t care how much you work out and practice. I don’t care how far Tiger jogs every morning or how far he can swim. He swings a very light club to hit an even lighter, and very stationary, round ball. Sure sounds like billiards to me.
So when forced to talk golf I revert to the old “hope Tiger is losing” phrase. Normally people would ask why I hate Tiger so much and I would be forced to explain how he single-handedly made golf into a “sport” in which it takes up time on my sports shows, takes up pages on my sports papers and makes me have to talk golf, when I would much prefer to talk sports. From now on, people won’t ask why I am cheering against Tiger. More and more people seem to be joining me in the realm of the Tiger-haters. The only differences are our reasons. This is where I find myself on Tiger’s side.
The media has come down hard on Mr. Woods since he drove that Cadillac SUV into the tree just outside his Florida home. A week after the event, we seem to know all the details thanks to the media firestorm. Yes, he has been cheating on his Swedish model wife with at least 3 of the ugliest girls a billionaire athlete has ever hooked up with. I didn’t think Tiger could make me hate him more and he just did.
The gold-diggers: Would you sleep with these women if you were a billionaire "athlete"?All of this is of course Tiger’s fault. Nobody was forcing him to place his 5 iron in another women’s equipment bag, but what about these girls? Athletes find it very easy to get women. Just ask Wilt Chamberlain (over 20,000 notches on his belt), Magic Johnson (HIV positive, despite his wife being negative, hummm….), Shawn Kemp (unmarried, father of at least seven children with seven different baby-mothers), Larry Johnson (5 kids with 4 mothers), Michael Jordan (offered 5 million dollars to his mistress to remain silent) and these are just the NBA players! Recently after allegations of harassment, the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant had to confess to his wife and family that he had been unfaithful. Tiger apparently told a friend, "I have to run to Zales to get a 'Kobe Special’”, referring to the $4 million "adultery ring” Kobe had bought his wife.
Of course athletes are targeted by women so they can get money or live a lifestyle they can only read about in grocery store magazines. So Tiger let his guard down. Yes, Tiger is to blame but I feel I need to speak up for the one “athlete” that makes me physically sick.
What these home-wreakers did is even worse than the actions of Tiger himself. No I am not condoning his actions, I am just trying (against a large portion of my sports brain) to shed light on just who these women are. They are gold-digging floozies who, despite our better judgement, will get rich off of lying to Tiger. These girls fooled Tiger and now they’ve hit their payday. Tiger has been had.
If you listen to the message that Tiger left on the one gold-digger’s voice mail, you get a real sense of how naïve Tiger is. Even I know that if you are having an affair and are trying to hide it, you should never leave a voice mail. As expected, the slut (in this case cocktail waitress Jaimee Grubbs) sold the message for a bit of “happiness”.
I am not saying what Tiger did isn’t wrong. Yes, Tiger still makes me sick. Whether watching him fist-pump in front of a bunch of privileged, over-weight blue-hairs in his boring Nike garb or watching these cheap, gold-digging, hood-rats make a buck off of this story, I remain in a perpetual state of nausea.
In a sign that the world is coming to an end, John Daly offered some advice to Tiger Woods.
John Daly is what every golfer should be, but a therapist he is not. Daly is a loud, chain-smoking, funny drunk who doesn’t take golf (or unfortunately life) seriously. He seems to have fun out on the course, when he’s not going through detox. He once was asked about his nutrition and responded "I believe nicotine plus caffeine equals protein."
He made a few statements that usually John doesn’t make. For the most part he makes good media material. Always a joker, he seems to but positive or at least humorous spins on the mundane questions the media lob at him. This time, he commented more like Tiger would have.“The thing that Tiger needs to look at is, whatever happened, just tell the truth. He’ll get over this. Golf needs him. Golf needs him badly... no doubt.”
Not quite the zinger we have become accustomed to. This coming from a man that once said "Some folks say I don't deserve such a beautiful wife. But hey, I earn money. Surely that is a reason!".
Now Tiger is getting life tips from a man that divorced his first wife for lying about her age, was charged with beating his second wife, who’s third wife went to prison for drug-related offences and his fourth wife nearly killed him with a knife.
To say golf needs Tiger is the understatement of the year. Even I know that golf is Tiger and Tiger is golf. Because of this fact, I will groan, roll my eyes and be on the verge of vomiting every time someone cheers as Tiger makes another tournament winning putt (and subsequently fist-pumps like he scored an NHL goal or threw a touchdown pass).
Come on John, nobody cares about hearing you tell Tiger to come clean. You should be the last person to give advice. How about make a joke, for Tiger’s sake? Now that is what golf really needs!
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