This article first appeared in the Jul/Aug 2010 issue of World Gaming magazine.
Tiger Woods was the perfect sportsman. Young, good looking, a young family, incredible talent and a burning desire to win that comes around once in a lifetime. Unfortunately his whole world came crashing down this year and when the dam broke there were plenty of demons ready to swoop down and torture the great man.
Let’s have a look at the facts. Tiger Woods liked beautiful women. He certainly wasn’t the first and we all know he won’t be the last to break his marriage vows. The strange thing about the whole saga was that he appeared to never really contemplate the danger he was putting himself in. Did Tiger forget who he was? It has now become public knowledge that his private life was a crazy world that was inevitably going to come crashing down at some point.
He rolled the dice many times and it was only a matter of time before he got caught. I would have liked Tiger to have taken it on the chin and told the media to get lost. So what if he lost his corporate sponsorship? The man has more money than his children could spend in ten lifetimes. He chose another route and admitted that he was a confused young man who had done the wrong thing. Golfing fans across the world held their breath as the rest of world picked at his carcass.
Some of his peers supported him but many others privately or publicly revelled in his demise. Many professional golfers quickly forgot that they all enjoyed the benefits Tiger, and Tiger alone, had created. The money, the hype and the huge increase of interest in the modern era golf was all Tiger’s doing. People always did, and always will, want to watch Tiger play. He is the best to have ever played the game and his dominance of the sport will definitely see him in the top ten sportsmen in the history of sports even if he never hits another golf ball again.
So what will happen with his personal life from here on in? As far as I am concerned I don’t know and I don’t care. What will the relationship with his wife be and will he cure his supposed “sex addiction”? Again I don’t know but I probably should care as I desperately want to see Tiger out on the course doing what he does best. If the majority of the fans and media took this approach the happiest person on the planet would be Tiger. Tiger has always been prepared to let his golf do the talking which has certainly been a breath of fresh air. Before any tournament he gets in front of the camera and tells his fans he is going out to win. When he wins he knows he deserves it and when he loses he laments what could have been and vows that he will come out harder and stronger the next time. That is all we should care about as sports lovers.
Where to now for Tiger the golfer? It really depends on the mental toll this whole ordeal has taken. Not many people on the planet could understand the torment this young champion has gone through. Whether you think he bought it upon himself or whether you think he should be left to be judged on his golf is totally up to you. I think it might take as much as a year before he comes back to consistently playing his best golf. When he is on his game Tiger is just simply in a league of his own. If he played to 80 percent of his ability every time he played he would win 80 percent of the tournaments he played in. It is impossible for even Tiger to achieve those lofty heights but I would be surprised if we have seen the best Tiger has to offer. Let us just hope that the sporting world is not robbed of arguably its greatest star due to something that has nothing to do with sport.
