When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
I miss the old days when Tiger's year end press conference from the Sherwood cart barn featured longer, carefully worded but sometimes interesting answers to scribbler and local television reporter questions. Now fresh off a spontaneous Twitter Q&A session Tiger faced seemingly the same question nearly every time and he responded (appropriately?) in Tweet form several times.
When Kelly Tilghman breathlessly asked him about the rubber band he was wearing for his first television interviews, Tiger said the Buddhism bracelet bringing him inner peace never came off. But reader Mel looked at these Getty Images (here and here) shots from Australia last week and noticed it's gone. Maybe it was itchy?As Thanksgiving arrives, Doug Ferguson files a comprehensive recap of the events that followed Tiger's November 27th car accident and includes fresh comments from Team Tiger.
There was one interesting quote from agent Mark Steinberg, defending the PR debacle in the accident's aftermath.
Those cynics who didn't buy into Tiger's Newsweek column and the anecdote about making the kids mac and cheese will find comfort in knowing my colleague Tim Rosaforte mopped it up!.
So what's the message? That Tiger realized what he lost, and he's doing everything he can to save what's more important than a green jacket, player of the year honors and a $10 million FedEx bonus.
It's easy to say Tiger should have come to this realization earlier, but that's in the past. His renewed commitment to his children seems as real as a side dish of macaroni and cheese on Thanksgiving Day.
Who eats macaroni and cheese on Thanksgiving?
Robert Lusetich wasn't quite as taken by the PR offensive, but he also was not as offended as some.
The knee-jerk reaction among most of my peers was to decry it all as a cynical stunt. Woods, they cried, is a phony.
I disagree.
Each of those acts reveal exactly who he is, just where he’s at a year after his life was deconstructed by a sex scandal, and why from here on out we should only care what he does as a golfer.
The Newsweek piece shows that while he’s trying to reach out to fans, he’s still listening to IMG and that they’re both clinging to the dream of rebuilding the Tiger Woods brand with big sponsors.
Good luck with replacing those 50 rocks a year, fellas.
And John Feinstein unleashes.
It is clearly just another image-rehab attempt by Woods and his sycophants to try to win back corporate money and fans—the fans being important because their support leads to corporate money. It is no coincidence that the latest blitz comes a couple of weeks prior to Woods’ 18-man exhibition event in California which he hasn’t played in for two years. (First year injury; second year, um, injury so to speak). He’s trying to keep his sponsor on board after two disastrous years and unveiling the latest version of his new self all at once.
Do I believe Woods when he says he’s learned the joys of giving his son a bath in the last year? Maybe. But if it is so joyful and SO important to him why was he in Australia chasing appearance money a couple of weeks ago when he could have been playing a couple of miles from his house at Disney? Why is he going to Dubai early next year to chase more appearance money?
....ya, that's the ticket!
In a Golf World Monday item on the Tiger accident anniversary, Ron Sirak reports that Camp Ponte Vedra and specifically Tim Finchem are feeling the pressure to get ratings up in early 2011 as they head into television contract negotiations. Part of the grand plan is to beg Tiger to add a west coast event.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
