Reflections on Tiger Woods.
Tiger Woods is 33 years old. It seems a time when many have their most painful year in
life. It certainly was for
me. At 33. So he's right on time. I want to share my thoughts
about Tiger and Elin in three areas.
I’ll visit him as a golfer, the public vs. private issue, and the
personal lives of Tiger and Elin.
Tiger is the greatest player to ever play the game. Whether he has the greatest career or
not is yet to be determined but no doubt he has the most complete game. If his body and his putting hold up he’ll
bypass Nicklaus in most important categories over the next decade. I am in complete awe of Tiger’s power,
finesse and nerves when he is at his best on the golf course.
That said I don’t root much for Tiger in tournaments anymore. I’ve never been a dynasty type of guy
other than liking the Staubach led Cowboys when I was little. I don’t root for the Patriots, don’t
like the Lakers, and the house that Ruth built may as well be an outhouse. Tiger’s record is better than any of
those teams.
In golf I am more for the first time major winners. I thought the British Open finish was
great this year. Tom Watson at 59
almost won but didn’t. Stewart
Cink who’d never won a major did.
Watson got some time to relive past glory and Cink joins the select list
of golfers who are major champions.
It was a tremendously meaningful victory to Cink and I find that more
appealing than Watson adding another notch in his belt even if his age made it
a compelling narrative.
In that tournament Tiger missed the cut. I was ok with that. Tiger shows incredible class and honor
to the other golfers on the course in most cases. At other times his behavior is childish and to call it
classless would be too kind. He
might want to take in the Bobby Jones movie. Being a fierce competitor doesn’t equate to inviting the
person of The Trinity du jour to damn the club or ball or swing that went askew
at that moment. And those are some
of his milder moments. After the
Jones movie Tiger would be advised to hang out with Mr. Gary Player for a
while.
Player knows that being a great golfer does not make one a
great man. Player is a great man
who happened to play great golf. While Tiger benefited in many ways from
his relationship with Michael Jordan, it’s clear that Jordan is no Gary Player
in many important facets of life.
Tiger Woods is a public figure who has done well in
maintaining a private life. He’s
fine with all the cameras on him when he is playing golf but doesn’t want them
around when he is not. Good for
him.
Yet in this instance he took his private life to the
street. A nice, expensive street
to live on to be sure but still a public street. So here is a private man in turmoil who made a public
mistake. He then didn’t deal with
the public matter publicly.
As he’s said in statements there is much embarrassment over
this. For a man who is meticulous
over his public image to be out of control in this manner is going to flush his
face.
I do believe he could have saved face by being more direct
in the beginning, and telling what happened in a general manner without going
into too much detail, but much more than he did share.
The first two sections of this are shattered car glass
compared to the rest. Here is
where my heart really is.
I hurt for Tiger.
I hurt for Elin. I hurt for
them as a married man and woman. I remember back to the first week of the
revelation of Ann’s affair. My
heart exploded. Dynamited. An old stadium being imploded. Mount Saint Helens. A midair plane crash. My chest ached so much it hurt to
breathe.
Ann was crushed as well. I remember looking at her. She seemed to have aged 40 years overnight as she faced her
duplicity, her lying and the pain she had caused those she loved including me
and the children of her womb.
I remember an image of her standing in the kitchen. She was half alive half dead. Her matted hair hadn’t been combed in
two days. Her shoulders seemed to
have shrunk two sizes in her wrinkled t-shirt. Her neck was bent forward
yearning for someone to chop off her head so she wouldn’t have to decide whether
to take her own life or not. The
truth of her betrayal crashed in like an escalade smashing into a tree.
We both fantasized about a car accident. We thought about taking our own lives
and making it look like an accident.
We thought about doing that and taking the life of the other. We thought about doing that and taking
our own life. We thought about
doing that and taking both our lives.
Those things do go through ones mind when dealing with pain this
intense.
In those first few days I could easily see myself or Ann
heading out at two in the morning after a heated fight in full F-it mode and
smashing into stuff like fire hydrants or trees. Maybe we would have opened the garage door or maybe
not.
I never took a golf club to a car window but I did take a 3
iron to an antique mirror I had given to Ann as a Christmas present. I used a Spalding not a Nike. That
mirror was shattered, splattered all over the floor. I cleaned up the jagged shards that may as well been
dripping with the blood I felt seeping from my wounded heart. It really didn’t help much. I was just out an 80 year old mirror.
So somewhere near this place is where this 33 year old man
and his beautiful bride are right now.
Both their souls are in shock and traumatized. And they had to deal with the media?!
They have a long road ahead and I want them to make it. I want them to deal with truth and hurt
and heal and grow and have a great marriage. I want them to be together, with their kids and share the
fun of life again and not give in and end their marriages like Watson and
Norman did.
My hope for them in this season of hope is that they find
the baby whose birth we will soon celebrate. This baby also had an extremely difficult 33rd year
of life. May he bring meaning to
the suffering they are currently experiencing. May he guide them through the darkness of this black cave to
a place of rest and redemption and resurrection.
winning the MGA Father/Son Super Senior with you this year at Porto Cima. 
