We’re sunk. Golf is sunk. At least the PGA Tour. I said weeks ago in print in this column: Tiger if you’re going to save golf, you better be squeaky clean, because if they get anything on you, we’re all sunk.
Right on cue, we get not one, but two scandals. First we get Tampongate. Apparently Woods just forgot that every camera on planet Earth is HD-laser focused on him 24/7. How he could possibly forget that the same cameras that can see a golf ball move one dimple (and hence a penalty) can catch his misogynistic, puerile joke on poor unsuspecting Justin Thomas, who had to play straight man Bud Abbott to Woods’s low-budget Lou Costello. Ooooh…Tiger outdrove Justin one time! So he thinks that makes it cool to impugn his manhood by handing him a tampon on the sly.
Tiger, this is 2023. There is no more “on the sly.”
That impugned every member of the Ladies’ Tours. Please, Annika Sorenstam, defend your Tour’s honor! Or Paula Creamer. Or Morgan Pressel. Somebody please, stop the madness! Tampon jokes are decidedly unfunny. What’s next? Beavis and Butthead impressions?
Now we get the horrifying word that Tiger’s latest angry ex-girlfriend, one Erica Herman, wants out of her NDA with Woods, presumably so she can dish about sexism, mistreatment, harassment, and who knows whatever else. Another fine mess. With another jumped up Klingon. As if Howard Stern and his New Years Pageant of Mistresses were lining up all over again. I think I liked the Tiger that sat home all day and ate cereal while watching cartoons the most.
Just what golf needed while trying to chase off the piratical, half-baked, yet Saudi slush-funded LIV golf series. And what timing! Just what we needed on the eve of the Masters.
Thank goodness for Rory McIlroy. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it until Woods hangs up his Nikes. McIlroy is the hero golf needs, not Woods. Woods is a boor. Woods never grew up. Woods can’t help himself. Book it: we can’t trust Tiger. But we can always trust Tiger to be Tiger.
So grab your popcorn, everyone. Golf’s Uncivil War is about to enter Round 2 – both in and out of courts. At least the PGA is winning the legal battles thus far. And the battle for hearts and minds. No matter how much money the Saudis have thrown at golfers, the end product has been laughable at best, a sideshow at worst. But the calm before the storm is over, and the troops are mobilizing for more hostilities. It’s the deep breath before the plunge. Let’s hope Tiger Woods can just keep his act out of the gutter.
