Tiger In the Rough

Written by Ben Pogany

Ok. I'm sick to death of this story already, but I feel like I've gotta weigh in here. And maybe its a little ironic that the last time I did an editorial, it was on Steve Phillips and his sorry excuse for venturing outside the bonds of matrimony. Well, at least I guess you can say Tiger knows how to pick 'em.

So on the way to work this morning one of the radio jockeys I happened to be listening to suggested that this Tiger debacle might be the biggest sports story of the decade. Really? Personally, I feel like this has got to be the biggest non-story since the bubble boy. So Tiger Woods cheated on his wife. I’m not saying that what he did wasn’t wrong, but why is this considered an earth-shattering, Extra-Extra-Read-All-About-It news story? Tiger Woods is famous. Tiger Woods is rich. This has got to be the 87th time a rich, famous person has cheated on their wife in the past year. We've gone through this so many times, I've just been desensitized to it at this point. He is certainly not the first star athlete to go “rogue,” and he certainly won’t be the last.

Now alright. I know there’s people out there who will say this is different. Tiger was supposed to be the good one. The squeaky-clean poster boy for all that is right in athletics. He had about a trillion endorsements and was just about the last person anybody would suspect of such a transgression. But did we really know Tiger? All he was for us was a soft-spoken guy who pretty much only talked about golf, stayed out of the limelight, and kept his personal business personal. He was a blank slate for us to fill with the qualities we all desired out of a sports hero, and so we did. So it turns out Tiger wasn’t all that we had imagined. Now this might be a big deal for Nike, but I frankly remain unfazed.

And back to that whole “biggest sports story of the decade” claim. Um, remember Michael Vick. The guy electrocuted dogs! Now, I suppose if he had had sex with them, this might have been a contender. A better comparison would have to be Kobe, and lest we forget that that whole scandal broke with a rape allegation! Turned out he merely cheated on his wife, and for awhile his rep took a beating. And then he won another championship and just like that, Kobe was back. America is a fickle nation. Trust me, once Tiger wins another green jacket or two, maybe passes Nicklaus, we’ll all be saying “who cares about a little infidelity. That guy can mash it.” As far as I’m concerned, that day can’t come soon enough.