There have been numerous, high profile, public complaints about Tiger Woods’s club throwing and swearing lately. During the British Open I personally heard two F-words and my intern, a lady, saw an “SOB.”
I’ll just line up the articles for you to read them:
First, Rick Reilly has some choice words for Woods’s choice of words. From the article:
“If there were no six-second delay, Tiger Woods would be the reason to invent it. Every network has been burned by having the on-course microphone open when he blocks one right into the cabbage and starts with the F-bombs. Once, at Doral, he unleashed a string of swear words at a photographer that would’ve made Artie Lange blush, and then snarled, “‘The next time a photographer shoots a [expletive] picture, I’m going to break his [expletive] neck!”
It’s disrespectful to the game, disrespectful to those he plays with and disrespectful to the great players who built the game before him. Ever remember Jack Nicklaus doing it? Arnold Palmer? When Tom Watson was getting guillotined in that playoff to Stewart Cink, did you see him so much as spit? Only one great player ever threw clubs as a pro — Bobby Jones — and he stopped in his 20s when he realized how spoiled he looked.
This isn’t new. Woods has been this way for years: swearing like a Hooters’ bouncer, trying to bury the bottom of his driver into the tee box, flipping his club end over end the second he realizes his shot is way offline.
Next, one of the authors of the Huffington Post reports on this incident from the Masters. From the article:
“Tiger had to know that there were dozens of people, many of them kids, standing within 20 feet of him getting an earful of his invective. He clearly didn’t care. It’s Tiger’s World ™, we just live in it. We promptly went somewhere else.
As I watched the tournament later on TV, Tiger would openly mouth obscenities when he hit a bad shot. You might chalk it up to a bad day, but he has made a habit of this during his career, as well as tossing clubs around on occasion. It’s expected behavior for him now. If the FCC fined Tiger for every time he blathered the F-word on national TV he’d probably have $25 million in penalties racked up by now.
Many people, including most fawning TV commentators, celebrate this as “passion” or “competitive drive,” as if the rest of the PGA tour do not possess these qualities. The reality is that it that Tiger’s “intensity” is simply the d-bag behavior of a coddled bully….If Tiger Woods was a company, he’d be AIG. Talented, egomaniacal, oblivious and dragging the system of standards down around him. Winning is not everything. Tiger Woods is good commercially for golf and TV ratings, but in the ways that matter, such as responsible behavior and representing the core values of golf, he is bad for the game.
Tiger’s goal is to beat Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major tournament victories. If he stays healthy he probably will, but he will lag in the area that really matters. Jack Nicklaus always conducted himself as a gentleman..”
Wow. Tough talk, but also an important and pressing issue. Next, on GCA.com Melvyn Morrow, a direct descendant of Old Tom Morris himself, excoriated Woods for his boorish performance at the British Open. From the discussion:
“Am I the only one who considers Tiger performance at The Open and in front of the general public and worldwide TV unacceptable?
A quality player and Professional like Tiger should have the ability to control is temper, its sends out the wrong message to the young that it is acceptable to behave any way you want if rich and a quality player.
I believe that Tiger should be given a public warning by the R&A that this type of behaviour is not acceptable on a golf course and certainly not The Open.
Was it not just a few months ago on here that many questioned John Daly antics on a golf course. Tiger has shown his true inner self and if this type of performance continues, I hope that one of the Governing Bodies or at the very least, an owner of a Golf Course shows the balls to say this behaviour is not accepted on my course and you are not welcome.
Tiger is still in effect a young man with many good years ahead. He is one of the most gifted players ever seen on a course, but by loosing his self-control shows a big flaw in his build up, his character.”
For many years consecutively, Woods was the most fined player on the PGA Tour. He also was the reason why the fine for cursing rose from $500 to $5,000.
