Saturday
Dec262009
Of All The Amazing Things Tiger Has Done...
...I have to put his now month-long disappearance right up there with his 14 majors. Okay, maybe that's a bit much, but consider that he crashed his Caddie in the wee hours of November 27th and hasn't been seen since despite being one of the five most recognizable people on the planet and having a huge price on his head.
Granted, it's been a total disaster from a P.R. perspective and each day he hides his aura takes a hit, but you have to admire the ability to disappear!
Saturday, December 26, 2009 at 07:38 PM
Reader Comments (26)
I wonder if the watch and gloves Harvey was wearing in this fable story were Tag Heuer and Nike brands?
I wonder if Tiger Woods disappeared like Alice, down a rabbit hole or whether it was like Gopher out of Caddyshack? Perhaps Woods is angling for some form of Caddyshack Gopher endorsement since his sponsors are heading for the nearest railway egress, or is it tube exit?
If my aging memory serves me right, in the 'Alice in Wonderland' fable story, Alice grows nine feet tall and begins to cry a pool of tears. Similar I guess to Tiger, when Elin Woods was going to leave him, as a result of his extra-marital away golf scores.
Another likeness with 'Alice in Wonderland' is that, Tiger Woods was sold as at least nine feet tall. He was marketed as an infallible super-being with family value swooshes in all the right boxes by the IMG gravy train, when far from being on the straight and narrow tracks. Currently, the TW train-wreckage is in ostrich syndrome "hold" state, as opposed to "just do it" mode.
Time will tell if things are going to calm down to a Billy Smart circus but Woods' team are having difficulty in keeping the blogging wolves, social networking and media at bay. Recent comments attributed to 2007 Solheim Cup Helen Alfredsson, a compatriot of Woods' wife, means he will not be able to draw a line under such "transgressions", for the foreseeable future.
The January edition of Golf Digest Magazine containing Tiger Woods and President Obama on the front page will add logs to the run-away train disaster. I do not believe this image will be well received by the American general public.
Woods' disappearance has been a total disaster from a public relations perspective and each day he hides his aura takes a hit, but you have to admire his ability to disappear like Harvey the Rabbit in 'Alice in Wonderland'.
I wonder how many paparazzi adventures there will be finding out the whereabouts of Tiger Woods. Also, will there be a winter wonderland of further revelations about Woods' 'playing away from home' in the early part of 2010?
Tiger Woods will return to competitive golf (we all hope!) and again be embraced for his play. . . Most Americans have the ability to "get over stuff and move on" unlike some of you folks who still think of us as crude, backward indigenous people who would be better off had we remained your colony.
He's not coming back--maybe the Champions Tour!...and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dom will caddy.
Stick a fork in it!
1. the first photo by a paparrazi of him is probably worth $100K. Motivated paparazzi are not his friend.
2. cameras in every cellphone in North America.
Frankly, it is sad that his life has come to this.
I must say though that for a while I thought Tiger would come back smoldering with determination (and rage) and blow the tour apart, winning back his former glory. Now I have my doubts. While my guess is that those who claim that Tiger is lying low until his facial injuries heal are correct, there can be no doubt that his absence from view is seen by the public (at least those who are interested) as cowardice. And, assuming the "revelations" are over, there is significant and lingering anger among those folk at the cynicism and venality of the confidence trick that has been played on them. Even if he were to resume his stellar career as if nothing had happened, which is what I think he will try to do eventually, the glory has gone forever and the legacy will be of a wonderful golfer who, like many celebrities before him, began to believe that he was omnipotent, that the norms of society do not apply to him. King Henry VIIIth was a similar example in a different sport; but he did not have to deal with the gutter press - he just had anyone who dared to criticize or resist him beheaded. TW doesn't have that club in his bag though.
"he just had anyone who dared to criticize or resist him beheaded. TW doesn't have that club in his bag though."
By all accounts Elin has one in her bag and gave it a hell of a try.
:-) :-)
Rehab. He's not in the Bahamas or in a resort somewhere. He's not on a yacht or tucked away somewhere with Rachel Uchitel. He's in rehab and probably won't resurface until the second week of January.
Now, mind you, this information is courtesy of Rank and Idle, the Speculation Brothers, but I bet that will ultimately wind up being the truthful explanation.
As a Brit I can assure you that the royal family is a joke to 90% of us, as is the old aristocracy. But they have added hugely to the gaiety of the nation over the last 50 years or so, with their drunken high jinks, multiple adulteries, and demonstrations of their remoteness from real life merclilessly exposed by the press. The one thing the monarchy does for us is play a role in a constitutional system that does not merge the "state" and politics as one entity, and that has proven to be a good thing over the centuries.
However, to give them their due, they are eternally hounded by the paparazzi, and each misstep is savaged by the feral British gutter press which even more vicious, if less insane, than the National Enquirer.
We have no objection at all to foreigners laughing at them, so I think it's only fair that the rest of the world can get a good giggle out of the publication of TW's foibles; after all, he's made a big deal, and a massive fortune, out of being international.
And can I have two tins of beans, please! Bring out your dead! And now ... for something completely different!
Fore!
1) He goes over to Iraq or Afganistan with Hank Hanney and gives a bunch of clinics to the GI's flying on miliary flights etc. It is all done top secret for his security but there is imbedded golf press so that he get the PR. It becomes a humbling experience for Tiger and how do you not begin to forgive someone that makes the day/week for a bunch of America's finest.
2) He takes the year off until the Ryder Cup and plays for Team America. It will make this the wildest Ryder Cup of all time allowing the event to go back to its roots.
I can imagine a scenario where it gets even worse for Woods - Florida prosecutors opening up a domestic violence investigation. Woods and his family's action could then be governed by the state - anathema and probably the absolute worst case to Woods.
JC