As Team Tiger tucks tail and hides, the worst silence comes from Tim Finchem. As new allegations involving Woods picking up a Perkins manager/waitress near his Windemere mansion appear in the New York post, and an alleged Ambien-fueled sex tryst with Rachel Uchitel, comes to light in the Boston Herald, Tim Finchem has been more silent than Woods and, like Tiger, he has no excuse.
What does that tell you about the man running the PGA Tour? It tells me he’s no better than Bud Selig. It tells me he’s burying his head in the sand and hiding, praying that the World – to whom he and others sold a false bill of goods – that the World chooses to forgive, ignore, or find these allegations so shocking, that they can’t take any more and tune the whole sordid affair out.
Fat chance, Tim.
The best the PGA Tour has done so far is to issue this headscratcher – spokesman Ty Votaw said the tour does not comment on “hypothetical situations, conjecture and guesswork.”
What hypotheticals? What conjecture and guesswork? What you fail to paint as hypothetical and conjecture is cold, hard audio and eyewitness accounts of Tiger with his pants down. But this is the same gobbledygook that Finchem babbles when they bring him into the TV tower for another canned, friendly interview. Well Finchem better understand that the world has been wise to his vacuous gibberish for years, and will not look the other way anymore, not after the Superman he sold us turned out to be Public Enemy No. 1.
Fan response has run roughly 70% against Woods and his “right to privacy” defense.
“They sold me a false bill of goods, fumed one outraged fan. “Tiger went off the deep end and has too dark a dark side. How can I ever trust him again?”
One female fan was equally irate, “This will stain the PGA Tour for years. People will never stop telling jokes or referring to the stories. Party girls was bad enough, but pancake house waitresses? “Go to the bathroom and take a picture?” No child should ever look up to him again. Goodbye and good luck! I’m throwing out every Tiger/Nike thing my kids own,” raged Meri Burstien of New York City.
Fan and blogger Jim Colton wrote on one well-trafficked Bulletin Board, “He portrayed and sold an image of devoted father and family man. Remember those sappy family pics with his kids and the dogs jumping all over them, everybody smiling wide as can be? I was happy to believe it because I wanted to believe it. Like I wanted to believe in Michael Jordan. So I’m disappointed that he was exposed as a fraud. So best of luck getting your 19+ majors, Tiger. I wish you well. I don’t think I will root for him like I once did. In the end, I think he’ll have his 19+ majors, a bunch of money, a girlfriend half his age and not much else, similar to how his buddy MJ has six rings and is now a punchline. I wouldn’t trade places with either of them. “Be Like Mike”, “I am Tiger Woods”. No thanks.”
From another poster on the same board, “I for one, was a disbeliever on Day 1. I thought he was way too private a guy. Tiger was my hero, I never missed a shot if at all possible for all 4 days of every tournament he played in. Now, I’m extremely disappointed in him. Not only is he human after all, but he is really a dirt bag. His marriage is a sham, and if I were an endorser, I’d drop him like a hot potato. Will I still watch him play, yes. Will I want him to win, interesting question. I don’t know.”
“This mess is a HORRIBLE THING. They sold their soul for Tiger Woods and now they are in the deepest trouble…the networks will demand worse contracts, the sponsors will command less money from golf, and the fans don’t trust the PGA Tour brand any more than they can trust Tiger’s. Finchem needs to do something to look like he has control,” said one prominent golf journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Whenever Tiger does return…and the Commissioner might want to consider a year-long suspension to send a message, there is precedent for it – John Daly and Jonathan Kaye…when Woods returns, things should be different:
1. No more throwing clubs,
2. No more F-bombs, the swearing has gotten so out of control, women and kids are having to move away from him, that’s how considerate Tiger Woods is.
3. No more special treatment like getting out to play when YOU choose, Tiger. You do what the Tour tells you, when they tell you. You’ve lost all your mega-star privileges because you were such a colossal embarrassment when left to your own devices,
4. No more being treated like you are bigger than the game. Now you are 1 out of 156. You don’t like it? Tough. You did this, you asked for it, it’s your bed, now you lie in it.
Okay, ironic word choice there…
5. All the panderers and enablers are FIRED. It’s not their job to help you cheat on your wife. If Elin can’t trust them, goodbye. One prominent player in the pre-Internet era was reputed to have similar indiscretions, and to keep his marriage together he did one big thing his wife wanted him to do: completely get rid of his promotional and agency teams.
6. This one comes from John Hopkins of the Times Online, “Stop behaving as though he is not bound by the normal rules A friend of mine calls this Woods’s “I am God” attitude. “He believes he can control almost everything, hence the tantrums. If that inner conviction is broken, he won’t win the major championships he needs to overtake Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18.” Beating this total is tantamount to being Woods’s life work. ”
Actually Tiger’s boorish behavior just further cemented Jack’s legend.
7. From now on, no player is bigger than the game, no player is bigger then the PGA Tour. Can you handle that, Tim and Tiger? Repeat as necessary…
Anyway, the PGA Tour conduct policy was used to suspend Jonathan Kaye and John Daly for far less severe offenses, so Woods better not escape unscathed or, once again, the PGA Tour star system will be on display in all its ugliness and hypocrisy. Right now, Woods’s scandals are far more damaging – long term – to the PGA Tour brand than any other scandal in PGA Tour history.
Finally, Finchem better hope that Tournament hosts and sponsors don’t bail on Woods, because it could be embarrassing if a tournament sponsor or sponsor of Woods (or both), were to say, “we don’t want him at our tournament until he cleans up his act.” These sponsors are deeply concerned about their image, and if Woods’s appearance at a tournament becomes a liability, it reflects badly on them to be associated with him. This could still happen. Finchem should suspend Woods before the sponsors leave Woods, and lose faith in the Tour Brand, not after. Maybe that will help Tiger take remedial measures in his life to help regain some of his tattered image.
[…] will have a lot more leverage now…but then Sal echoes my comment from my last two articles here and here, Woods should be […]