Be honest: do you care about Tiger Woods or are you just watching for the jokes? It's OK to tell the truth. It's funny, right? All of it. Especially the part where he has to talk to the media about his whatever it is he feels sorry for getting caught at.
But really, is there anything more boring than Tiger Woods and the media coverage of whatever it is the story is at this point?
There are plenty of people to feel sorry for in the Tiger saga, and they mostly are the folks in the media that have to cover it as if it matters. Imagine having to waste precious lean tissue and brain matter in order to come up with something cogent to say about Tiger Woods. Watching the media coverage of Tiger the last day or two is like something come up by Jon Stewart or seen on Monty Python. The funny part is that the folks coming up with the bits and stories are being serious. They’re actually doing that stuff earnestly and without irony.
That’s hilarious!
I saw the transcript of Tiger’s interviews with ESPN and the Golf Channel, but figured Beavis & Butthead episodes on YouTube or maybe a Steven Seagall movie might be more intellectually stimulating.
Oh, but it’s not like there wasn’t anything interesting at all to come out of the Tiger interview roll out. Not at all. In fact, it came out that PR maven Ari Fleischer quit as the puppet master because, as FoxSports reports Fleischer “fell on his sword because he felt he was becoming the story.”
“Fleischer’s legacy, whether fairly or not, remains propagating Bush/Cheney myths — like Saddam Hussein attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001 — which Americans don’t want to hear. Having him in behind the curtain gave the impression Woods had something to hide, and that words were being fed to him.”
So there’s that. Still, the timing of it all should come as no surprise. Tiger trotted out there on a Sunday after a weekend where the NCAA Tournament produced more crazy upsets than any first two rounds ever. In fact, Ivy League champ Cornell became the first team from its conference to win two games in the tourney since Penn went to the Final Four in 1979.[1] In fact, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, this very well might be the wackiest tournament since the 1986 NCAA Tournament where No. 7 Navy—with underclassman David Robinson—beat No. 2 Syracuse at the Carrier Dome before facing No. 14 Cleveland State in the Round of 16. That was the year No. 11 LSU got to the Final Four and freshman Pervis Ellison helped Louisville beat up No. 1 Duke in the championship game.
Good times.
Of course Tiger went out there at about the same time Congress was “debating” the historical passage of the health-care reform bill, too. That conjures up the up the biggest question of all:
Who cares about Tiger Woods? And if anyone cares about Tiger Woods, why?
Seriously, Tiger Woods plays golf. That’s it. Sure, he makes a lot of money and has charities and all of that stuff, but when it’s broken down to its essence, he is a golfer. That’s it. I never heard any stories where Tiger Woods rushed into a burning building to rescue some kids. No, he's not Spider-Man. He hits a little white ball, chases it down and then hits it again.
He also plays a sport in which a 60-year-old man (Tom Watson) came a centimeter away from winning the most-storied of all golf tournaments just last summer. It’s a sport where Phil Mickleson and John Daly can lumber and giggle around the course and win majors. Hey, I love golf as much as the next guy. I love playing it and watching it, but let’s be serious here. It’s golf. It ain’t cool.
At all.
Name another sport in which a 60-year-old man can beat the best in the world.
Why do we care about Tiger Woods again?
[1] Interestingly, Penn had to win four games as the No. 9 seed to get to the Final Four in 1979 (before getting destroyed by Magic Johnson and Michigan State). The Quakers knocked off No. 8 Iona, coached by Jim Valvano with Jeff Ruland in the low post, before slipping past No. 1 North Carolina. UNC had four future NBA players, which set the table for a victory over No. 4 Syracuse and No. 10 St. John’s. That’s right… Penn beat a 10-seed to get to the Final Four and tore through an ACC plus two Big East teams to get there. Cornell has the A-10 and Big Ten in its book. Is the SEC next?