Avid golf fans are more often likely to get unbiased golf news from U.K. writers, as they are nowhere near as enamored with Woods across the pond as we are in America. Woods’s misbehavior on and off the course has been called out time and again by foreign writers, and they certainly don’t engage in the insane hagiographic hero worship many domestic writers heap upon Woods in an effort to fall all over themselves praying at the Holy Church of the Professional Athlete. Guys like Dermot Gillece, Kalr McGinty and AWITP Irish Bureau Chief and Correspondent Brian Keogh, write with courage, accuracy, and flair. (You gotta love Brian’s headline last week – Player to McIlroy: “Watch out for the ladies!” Hysterical!)
Today, The Telegraph runs poignant interview with Woods’s former coach Butch Harmon. From the article:
“Tiger Woods must “take his medicine, be humble, be embarrassed” before he can move on from last year’s infamous sex scandal.
That’s the view of Woods’ former coach Butch Harmon, who says the world No 1 cannot hope to restore his reputation by staying out of the spotlight.
“The golfing public would like to see Tiger Woods do a press conference,” Harmon said. “To stand there in front of everybody, take his medicine, be humble, be embarrassed, be humiliated and answer the questions.
“But where the hell is he? We could find Osama bin Laden easier than we can find Tiger Woods. How long can you spend on a yacht in the middle of the ocean?
“If he wants to rekindle the image of who he is, this would be the best way to do it, to do the press conference because then he looks human.
“He is going to look ridiculous really, with the questions that are going to be asked. But the average person would appreciate that side of him because they’ve never seen that,” added Harmon.”
Still, accountability, responsibility, and remorse are not part of the votive liturgy at the Holy Church of the Professional Athlete. In the American sports industry, it pays to be a panderer and enabler. If YOU won’t brown-nose and make excuses, ten more guys who look just like you will line up to take your place, rake in vast sums of money, live the high-life vicariously, and cling-on like a Klingon, living off the scraps from an athlete’s table, no matter how vile a person he may be.
Vile…that’s the proper word to describe the way Tiger Woods acted towards his wife. What kind of person would treat Elin Woods – a gorgeous swimsuit model, a bright engaging young lady, and the devoted mother of his children, who kicked her career to the curb to live his life and only his life – who would treat her as though she were freely interchangeable with porn stars, strippers, cocktail waitresses, gold-diggers, “VIP party hostesses,” and the freakin’ Perkins waitress from down the street? An undesirable, that’s who, someone you wouldn’t let date your daughter. But hey, I hear Tila Tequila is available…
If he was truly sorry for what he’d done, we’d have heard from him by now – in person, not through his website and in a heavily crafted, lawyer-approved statement. But buoyed by Timid Finchem’s blindness to any wrongdoing and addiction to greed – an addiction fed only by taking the last possible dollar available – and by Nike’s desperately needing him to help sell grillions of dollars of equipment, Woods apparently thinks and – according to New York Post reports of Kultida’s Woods’s discussions with Elin – is told by IMG that he can bluster and deny his way through it, playing the same “privacy” card that an increasingly desperate Timid Finchem tries to bully past the probing inquiries of golf writers. If Timid Finchem is willing to not only roll over for him, but assist in strong-arming the media, what does Woods have to fear from anyone else?
Let me tell you what needs to happen: some prosecutor needs to look into whether anyone was inappropriately transported across state lines for sex, and if they were, out that person and punish him/her accordingly. Someone needs to look closely at the Galea-Woods connection, as well as other treatments Woods received so we can be certain the spectre of PEDs has not invaded the PGA Tour. In short, someone should do Timid Finchem’s job for him, because he’s running from it faster than a putt on an Oakmont green at a U.S. Open.
While I don’t believe one word of all the nonsense about him partying with Rachel Uchitel while she tries to sneak around with him while wearing a ski mask (SKI MASK!?), or engaging in bisexual encounters with “Loredana Jolie,” I also don’t think Tiger or Timid have learned a damn thing from this incident because I don’t believe them capable of learning from it. Tigers don’t change their stripes, and I’ve given up all hope of Finchem learning that what makes money and what’s right are sometimes not the same. Woods has been spoiled all his life: there’s one set of rules for everyone except Tiger Woods, who could make up whatever rules he wanted because no one ever had the stones to tell him no. Maybe that’s why golf should consider a new Commissioner: one with the courage to protect the game’s virtue rather than hide behind it, one with the courage to know that rules apply to everyone, high and low, or they aren’t rules at all. But according to Timid Finchem, he has no reason to suspend Tiger Woods and, moreover, he won’t even contact him. After all, he thinks privacy will make this all go away. Move along…nothing to see here…these aren’t the ‘roids you’re looking for.
That means Timid Finchem is no better than any of the long list of Tiger’s women: willing, loyal, and at the end of the day, empty…perhaps the emptiest suit of any major sports commissioner. Timid on steroids/PEDs and Timid on Tiger’s gross malfeasance (which casts dark light over the entire PGA Tour season): that’s Timid Finchem, and that will be his legacy, his gift to the game and the virtues he is supposed to protect. No transparency, no accountability, no consistency: the game deserves better. He is either oblivious to the fact that reporters see right through him, or worse still, ignoring it.
Meanwhile, Woods has found the best possible company…every bit as willing and complicit as Jamie Jungers or Jaimee MoneyGrubber…err…Grubbs, and with the added bonus that he doesn’t have to pay him to bend him to his will.
