This is Georgia’s week to shine and show off its bounteous azaleas and seriously blue skies. And, it’s time for us to get real about this Tiger Woods matter!
by Charlie Leck
Augusta is a small Georgia city, right over near the South Carolina border. You won’t find it the most impressive community you’ve ever visited. As a matter of fact, it’s a bit on the tacky side. But, to those of us who golf and who love golf, Augusta is the Mecca of our Faith – or, perhaps more precisely, August National Golf Club is the Mecca of our Faith.
This is Masters week. We, the religious faithful, have had the week carefully highlighted on our calendars since last year’s Master’s week came to a close. This week is one of the periodic elements for which we live. We want to watch the boys go romping off on the greenest, most beautiful field of dreams you’ve ever in your life seen.
For a period of time longer than the last decade, Tiger Woods has been the recognized King of Masters Week. It was his realm and he ruled over it even during those years when he was not its champion.
Now, after accidently revealing himself to his wife and the whole world as a two-timing (perhaps 10-timing) cheat and sexual pervert of sorts, Tiger is coming into town a bit timidly and without the kingly crown he normally wears around this spectacular 600 acre plot of land. Tiger, you see, is just like the rest of us and not a bit better. I have a strange loop in my backswing that always gets my attack on the ball coming from the outside and across the ball. It’s a sinfully bad way to attack a ball. I’ve also committed some of the non-golfing sins with which Tiger is familiar. So I’m not going to sit here and pound on this keyboard with any pretense that I am a better guy than he is. All you golfers out there who are without non-golfing sins – the entire two or three of you – line up behind that weird guy over there on the right.
Look it here! We’ve got priests by the hundreds out there who have been molesting small children for hundreds of decades – both here in America and around the world. Priests! This is not a world filled with good and wholesome people. It is filled with sinners and lots of them are perverts.
I laugh myself silly when I hear some of my friends say that they are not going to be cheering for Tiger Woods anymore – and that they hope he never wins another golf championship for as long as they live. I ask them if they would like to confess to me the sins and missteps of their own lives. They stutter, stammer and spit! They don’t have the balls to declare they are sin-free. I give them that at least. Then I ask them why they’re so harsh on Tiger. All he’s proven is that he is a weak bastard and as sinfully, easily tempted as the rest of us. The difference, of course, in Tiger and the rest of us is as great as the difference in our golf games; that is, his is absolutely beautiful and his scores are spectacular.
That may be crass, but it’s also the truth.
Why don’t we all get over it and hope that Tiger can find his game and bring us the thrilling play we once got from him. That’s all I care about. I hope, quite secretly, that Tiger can get his personal life back on track, recommit himself to his wife and find plenty of personal happiness with his family. As one who knows, Tiger, I’m here to tell you: Finding love and happiness in one’s family life can’t be beat – even by a fifty foot, downhill, curving putt that drops in the center of the hole with only a half-turn left in its journey.
As long as athletes are not hypocritical about their morals and do not preach a lie , I have no problem with what they do in private. I guesss if I were a golfer , I'd root for him to win all kinds of championships. The fact of the matter is let him earn his laurels. If he wins, fine. If he loses, no big deal.
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