From the beginning of the Tiger Woods era on the PGA Tour I have been consistently on record as fearing the inevitable. As high as Tiger has taken the PGA, and in fact, the entire world of golf, I’ve always known that he would eventually leave and thus cause the structure to collapse leaving everyone worse off than they started.
The world of golf has never seen a personality like Tiger Woods. You can argue with me if Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer, or Jack Nicklaus were better or more dominant players in their time. I’d probably even give you Bobby Jones. But you cannot convince me that, given the modern media machine, and the dollars behind it, that Tiger Woods has not inflated the world of golf beyond its natural limits.
There are literally millions of people paying attention to the world of golf only because of Tiger Woods. They aren’t being introduced to the game and thus learning to appreciate its subtle flow. They aren’t running out and picking up a set of clubs, signing up for lessons, and supporting their local courses. They’re just jumping on the bandwagon of a winner. Everyone loves to support a winner and Tiger gets it done at a greater rate than just about any other athlete in the world.
And then, with a 911 call in the middle of the night, a window was opened into the real world of Tiger Woods and no one likes what they are now seeing. It is a window that opened so easily, that revealed information that should have been so obvious to the league of reports assigned to cover Tiger’s story, that we are left both shocked by who Tiger really is and by the obvious nature of the for-profit media to seemingly try to cover Tiger’s tracks for fear of killing the sacred cow.
In short – Tiger Woods is a horrible excuse of a man. Most of the media covering him had to know it or at least had to have heard whispers about it. Key people on the PGA Tour had to know it. Several of his fellow players had to know it, but none of them reported it because he was worth more to all of them as a hero than as a goat.
And now the house of cards that Tiger Woods and his circle of feeder fish built for the PGA tour is coming tumbling down.
Tiger Woods will have a nearly impossible time coming back from this. The only reason people believe that there is even a chance is because of just how much money is riding on him pulling it off. They want to believe that everything will be alright because, if it isn’t, they are all screwed. Including his fans.
I personally have lost all respect for Tiger Woods. His skill is undenyable, but that doesn’t mean I have to like him. Within a week many of us have gone from enjoying the fact that we are living in the Tiger Woods era, about to witness the greatest golfer of all times set unsurpassable records, to suddenly having to deal with the fact that our “hero” is a horrible excuse of a man. His actions off the course will forever taint his records and thus the sport.
Tiger Woods is becomings golf’s O.J. Simpson.
I’m close, very close, to having to change my message from “Tiger Woods is ruining golf” to “Tiger Woods has ruined golf – at least for a while” and that makes me very sad for those too blind to see that the inevitable has been coming straight at them from the very beginning. I never dreamed it would end like this, but end it would, and now the price must be paid.
