Who is this person people are calling Tiger Woods? This is not the Tiger I enjoyed watching strike fear into the hearts of every golfer with the misfortune of being paired with him. I understand this is a different time in Tiger's life. He is trying to rebuild his image, if only for the sponsors.
But I find myself growing tiresome of his, "I didn't like the person I had become" attitude. Grow some balls. Learn from Sir Charles Barkley. He doesn't apologize for his compulsive gambling habit, his multiple DUIs, or his outspoken nature. This is who he is. He came out and said, "I don't believe professional athletes should be role models, parents should be." So why such an outcry for an apology from Tiger Woods? He hasn't broken any laws; in fact, you might argue he was a victim of domestic violence.
With each public apology, my opinion of him erodes. I understand the need for the first public explanation of the events. I can even understand the interviews he had with selected members of the media, but was his press conference at the Masters this past Monday really necessary? If this were the old Tiger he would have answered every question about his personal life with "I have already addressed that" and would have moved on. But this "new and improved," in-treatment Tiger still feels the need to ingratiate himself with the public. He reeks of weakness. It makes me have less respect for him as a golfer.
I'm not a Tiger fan because of what he does with his private life. I am a fan because he is a magician on the golf course. I find that magic fading with every sad, pathetic look he gives to the camera. I can only hope this is temporary, and he'll soon get back to making his opponents shake like a junkie needing a fix.
Showing posts with label Golf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Golf. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Is It OK To Scrutinize Tiger?
If you've been within 50 yards of a TV, computer or ham radio in the last week, you know the greatest golfer of the last 20 years, Tiger Woods, has gotten himself into a bit of trouble. And by a "bit of trouble" I mean that he is accused of having two affairs as well as being in a possible domestic dispute with his wife (connecting the dots, the dispute would most likely be regarding the affairs). Following the lead of other philandering high profile celebrities, athletes and politicians before him, Tiger offered a nebulous apology to his family and fans, despite not ever actually naming the transgression for which he was apologizing.
So Tiger is apologizing, and if he isn't going to tell us why, we can only assume it is regarding his rumored adultery. From this two schools have of thought have sprung. The first is "Leave Tiger and his family alone, we all make mistakes and nobody should have their personal life on display for the entire nation". The second is "OMG, this is America, tell us every dirty detail!". While the former argument is certainly more noble, the second is without a doubt what is going to happen.
So the question is "Is it OK to scrutinize Tiger?". Should we let him handle this domestic issue privately or is it ok for the public to learn any news that may become available? The answer is actually surprisingly simple: It's ok! So what makes it ok? First off, Tiger is a celebrity by choice (as are almost all athletes, actors and artists). He has chosen a high profile life in exchange for the fame and fortune of being one of the world's elite athletes. If the intense media scrutiny ever became too much or too invasive, Tiger could have simply walked away from golf. After all, nobody really gives a fuck if David Duvall (the #2 golfer in the world a mere 10 years ago) or an accountant in Pennsylvania is cheating on his wife. So just the act of being a professional athlete opens you up to more public interest (as Jayson Williams or Rae Carruth would attest), but there is another reason why it is ok for the public to have interest in Tiger.
Aside from being a professional athlete, Tiger Woods has openly accepted the role of celebrity and has used his celebrity to influence the America consumer for his own well being. Since he has come onto the PGA tour, Tiger has used his persona to invite himself into your living room to pitch Nike golf shoes, Buick automobiles, American Express, Gillette razors and many other products. Without going into an advanced class in advertising, the basic premise is "hey Tiger is a good guy and a winner, I should buy this product that he supports". Now the important part of this argument is that Tiger is a winner AND a good guy. He has used his squeaky clean personal life, his cool demeanor and his hot-ass Swedish wife to convince the American consumer that you should buy the products that he supports because if you do, you can be just a little bit like Tiger...a winner. In exchange for using all aspects of his persona to endorse a product, Tiger profited obscenely.
Being a celebrity has a cost. That cost is public interest. Tiger seems like a smart guy and surely he had to have known that as he accepted endorsements the public would become more interested in him. Woods freely chose to accept this public interest in exchange for huge endorsements. Unfortunately for Tiger, when you trade your persona for millions of dollars, you trade your entire persona: good, bad and adulterous (the argument of whether or not that is fair or right is open to debate, but there is no debating that it is the way it is). Tiger willingly made this trade and now has to live with the scrutiny.
So Tiger is apologizing, and if he isn't going to tell us why, we can only assume it is regarding his rumored adultery. From this two schools have of thought have sprung. The first is "Leave Tiger and his family alone, we all make mistakes and nobody should have their personal life on display for the entire nation". The second is "OMG, this is America, tell us every dirty detail!". While the former argument is certainly more noble, the second is without a doubt what is going to happen.
So the question is "Is it OK to scrutinize Tiger?". Should we let him handle this domestic issue privately or is it ok for the public to learn any news that may become available? The answer is actually surprisingly simple: It's ok! So what makes it ok? First off, Tiger is a celebrity by choice (as are almost all athletes, actors and artists). He has chosen a high profile life in exchange for the fame and fortune of being one of the world's elite athletes. If the intense media scrutiny ever became too much or too invasive, Tiger could have simply walked away from golf. After all, nobody really gives a fuck if David Duvall (the #2 golfer in the world a mere 10 years ago) or an accountant in Pennsylvania is cheating on his wife. So just the act of being a professional athlete opens you up to more public interest (as Jayson Williams or Rae Carruth would attest), but there is another reason why it is ok for the public to have interest in Tiger.
Aside from being a professional athlete, Tiger Woods has openly accepted the role of celebrity and has used his celebrity to influence the America consumer for his own well being. Since he has come onto the PGA tour, Tiger has used his persona to invite himself into your living room to pitch Nike golf shoes, Buick automobiles, American Express, Gillette razors and many other products. Without going into an advanced class in advertising, the basic premise is "hey Tiger is a good guy and a winner, I should buy this product that he supports". Now the important part of this argument is that Tiger is a winner AND a good guy. He has used his squeaky clean personal life, his cool demeanor and his hot-ass Swedish wife to convince the American consumer that you should buy the products that he supports because if you do, you can be just a little bit like Tiger...a winner. In exchange for using all aspects of his persona to endorse a product, Tiger profited obscenely.
Being a celebrity has a cost. That cost is public interest. Tiger seems like a smart guy and surely he had to have known that as he accepted endorsements the public would become more interested in him. Woods freely chose to accept this public interest in exchange for huge endorsements. Unfortunately for Tiger, when you trade your persona for millions of dollars, you trade your entire persona: good, bad and adulterous (the argument of whether or not that is fair or right is open to debate, but there is no debating that it is the way it is). Tiger willingly made this trade and now has to live with the scrutiny.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Oh, you were finished? Well, allow me to retort.
I didn’t realize the other Joe was gay for golf, but it’s always nice to have a debate, so let’s get into it.
There’s an aspect of golf and darts and other various sports that bothers me that I didn’t really mention in the previous post, but I’ll bring up now since it’s probably the pinnacle of my disdain.
YOU DON’T PLAY AGAINST ANYONE.
In darts, you’re not trying to outsmart anyone; you just toss metal at a wall. In golf, you’re not competing directly against other golfers; you’re just trying to play as well as you can play. If you’d like a comparison, think of it this way: Is it more gratifying to beat another player/team in a match on Halo, or to have each person play the first level of the campaign and declare as the winner whoever finished it faster? Golf, bowling, darts, figure skating, shot put, these are all “turn-based” sports, if you will. Say what you will about swimming, boxing, sprinting, tennis, or Greco-Roman wrestling, at least they’re head-to-head sports.
“[G]olf requires more precision and concentration than any other sport.” Hmmm, really? Let’s take the same comparison with pitching in baseball and examine it. Starting with when the pitcher receives the ball from the catcher, he has to be mindful of his feet. A balk is about the worst thing a pitcher can do, and it comes from simply forgetting yourself for a split second. Then, he’s actually got to pitch, which is done very differently based on a hundred different variables: who’s batting, who’s on deck, is someone on base, if so, how fast is the guy, how many outs are there, what’s the count, what was the last pitch, what did you throw this guy last time in this situation, do you have any weaknesses behind you in the field, is the sun going to affect the batter’s ability to pick up the rotation on the ball, etc etc? Then, after getting all of your preparation together, he’s got to actually pitch, which is just as complex as swinging a club, and a millisecond or millimeter difference can take you from double play to gopher ball. Yep, golfing and pitching are pretty similar…except that when you hit a golf ball, you don’t have a 220-pound cyborg named Dan Uggla trying to turn your pitch around and send it into the bleachers. There’s a pond, but they tend to be a little more predictable…in that they don’t move.
And I like how Joe mentions that golf takes 4+ hours and football takes only 3, and that they get breaks in football, but fails to mention that football players actually have to touch other football players. I’m not arguing the fact that professional golfers are athletes; in order to play any sport well, you’ve got to build your body for that sport. And general physical fitness always puts you in a better position to be successful at a task that requires physical acumen (or so I hear; physical fitness isn’t my forte). In football, you have to prepare yourself for thirty live minutes of combat among 3 hours of walking around, studying, and getting yelled at, rather than four hours of walking, with 50 big swings and 25 small ones mixed in.
In fairness to golf, I’ve never played an organized game of golf in my life; just a couple of those par 2 courses (or as many call them, miniature golf courses). But you know what? I’ve never played an organized game of football. I’ve never played hockey on any level. I haven’t played any game of tennis that I wasn’t forced to play by some sadistic P.E. teacher. But I can appreciate the competitive nature of those sports, and I can understand people who enjoy those sports (I myself like that foose ball). I’m not saying that golf isn’t fun to play, because I don’t know, maybe it is. But I am saying that I don’t understand how people can want to watch golf on television. When I watch sports, I’m not trying to watch something “done well.” I’m trying to see someone beat someone else. Playing the best round of the day is great, but there’s no adversary nature to that. Golfers even seem to generally like each other, always shaking hands and smiling. Gag me. Bill Belichick may be a bastard, but there’s no doubt he makes football more fun. The more definitively teams are divided into “teams I want to see win” and “teams I want to see lose,” the more fun it is to watch games.
It may simply be that I have some genetic flaw (or lack a flaw that many other people have) that prevents me from being able to see why golf is important to so many people. I’m more of a team sport kind of guy anyways, so maybe that’s part of the equation here. One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t talk people into not liking something they like, so obviously my writing here is in vain. I just enjoy a good fight, and since your two hosts of Joe & Joe Sports tend to agree on so much, we have to highlight our rare disagreements. Especially when I’m right.
There’s an aspect of golf and darts and other various sports that bothers me that I didn’t really mention in the previous post, but I’ll bring up now since it’s probably the pinnacle of my disdain.
YOU DON’T PLAY AGAINST ANYONE.
In darts, you’re not trying to outsmart anyone; you just toss metal at a wall. In golf, you’re not competing directly against other golfers; you’re just trying to play as well as you can play. If you’d like a comparison, think of it this way: Is it more gratifying to beat another player/team in a match on Halo, or to have each person play the first level of the campaign and declare as the winner whoever finished it faster? Golf, bowling, darts, figure skating, shot put, these are all “turn-based” sports, if you will. Say what you will about swimming, boxing, sprinting, tennis, or Greco-Roman wrestling, at least they’re head-to-head sports.
“[G]olf requires more precision and concentration than any other sport.” Hmmm, really? Let’s take the same comparison with pitching in baseball and examine it. Starting with when the pitcher receives the ball from the catcher, he has to be mindful of his feet. A balk is about the worst thing a pitcher can do, and it comes from simply forgetting yourself for a split second. Then, he’s actually got to pitch, which is done very differently based on a hundred different variables: who’s batting, who’s on deck, is someone on base, if so, how fast is the guy, how many outs are there, what’s the count, what was the last pitch, what did you throw this guy last time in this situation, do you have any weaknesses behind you in the field, is the sun going to affect the batter’s ability to pick up the rotation on the ball, etc etc? Then, after getting all of your preparation together, he’s got to actually pitch, which is just as complex as swinging a club, and a millisecond or millimeter difference can take you from double play to gopher ball. Yep, golfing and pitching are pretty similar…except that when you hit a golf ball, you don’t have a 220-pound cyborg named Dan Uggla trying to turn your pitch around and send it into the bleachers. There’s a pond, but they tend to be a little more predictable…in that they don’t move.
And I like how Joe mentions that golf takes 4+ hours and football takes only 3, and that they get breaks in football, but fails to mention that football players actually have to touch other football players. I’m not arguing the fact that professional golfers are athletes; in order to play any sport well, you’ve got to build your body for that sport. And general physical fitness always puts you in a better position to be successful at a task that requires physical acumen (or so I hear; physical fitness isn’t my forte). In football, you have to prepare yourself for thirty live minutes of combat among 3 hours of walking around, studying, and getting yelled at, rather than four hours of walking, with 50 big swings and 25 small ones mixed in.
In fairness to golf, I’ve never played an organized game of golf in my life; just a couple of those par 2 courses (or as many call them, miniature golf courses). But you know what? I’ve never played an organized game of football. I’ve never played hockey on any level. I haven’t played any game of tennis that I wasn’t forced to play by some sadistic P.E. teacher. But I can appreciate the competitive nature of those sports, and I can understand people who enjoy those sports (I myself like that foose ball). I’m not saying that golf isn’t fun to play, because I don’t know, maybe it is. But I am saying that I don’t understand how people can want to watch golf on television. When I watch sports, I’m not trying to watch something “done well.” I’m trying to see someone beat someone else. Playing the best round of the day is great, but there’s no adversary nature to that. Golfers even seem to generally like each other, always shaking hands and smiling. Gag me. Bill Belichick may be a bastard, but there’s no doubt he makes football more fun. The more definitively teams are divided into “teams I want to see win” and “teams I want to see lose,” the more fun it is to watch games.
It may simply be that I have some genetic flaw (or lack a flaw that many other people have) that prevents me from being able to see why golf is important to so many people. I’m more of a team sport kind of guy anyways, so maybe that’s part of the equation here. One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t talk people into not liking something they like, so obviously my writing here is in vain. I just enjoy a good fight, and since your two hosts of Joe & Joe Sports tend to agree on so much, we have to highlight our rare disagreements. Especially when I’m right.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Why Golf Is Relevant
If you thought I was going to sit idly by why Joe bashed golf, well, most of the time you would have been right. But not today. Even with Tiger Woods missing the rest of the 2008 season, people, including me, are going to continue to watch golf... and here is why.
First, the idea that golf is comparable to darts is ridiculous. No, wait, not ridiculous, something stronger than ridiculous, maybe ludicrous, yeah, I'm going with that. Sure the tasks are similar, "Put a small item into a small area", but that's exactly what a pitcher in baseball is trying to do and I don't think anybody would say that baseball athletes are equivalent to dart tossers. Make no mistake, golfers are athletes. Propelling a golf ball 300+ yards is a full body activity and golfers like Camilo Villegas, Aaron Baddeley and, yes, Tiger Woods, are showing that fitness and athleticism are just as important in golf as in any other sport (yep, you are saying "what about John Daly's fat ass?" and to that I say: David Wells, Charles Barkley and Tony Siragusa).
Additionally, golf requires more precision and concentration than any other sport. As far as precision is concerned, baseball is often called "a game of inches" and this is no doubt true, but golf is much, much finer. A few hundredths of an inch makes the difference between a precise stroke and one that finds the deep rough. Another few hundredths of an inch makes the difference between a ball that stops ten feet from the pin and one that rolls right through and into a green-side bunker. The ability of a player to control his muscles to deliver a quality strike time and time again is one of the most difficult tasks in all of sport and I know this because very few people can actually do it. This also speaks to the intense concentration it takes to be a professional golfer. With rounds typically lasting more than four hours, there are few sports that require their athletes to concentration for this length of time. Football, baseball and basketball games rarely last more than 3 hours and all these sports have long breaks during which players can regroup and refocus if things aren't going correctly. Having to maintain the mental focus to perform a difficult and precise task is the very essence of sport.
On to the argument that nobody will watch golf now that Tiger is out. Umm, no, that's not true. While Woods definitely brings alot of focus on the sport, PGA tour events will continue to be widely watched, analyzed and appreciated. The two remaining majors will definitely garner attention, with the history and uniqueness of the British Open and the always competitive PGA Championship. But those two events aside, golf will remain very, very popular. How do I know this? Well, like everything else, just look at the money. Again, Tiger is the best at bringing in dollars (in both golf and all of professional sports, making a jaw dropping $127 million in 2007), but guess who was the second highest grossing professional athlete last year, that's right another golfer. Phil Mickelson made over $62 million in 2007, which is well behind Tiger, but over 50% more than the next closest athlete, Lebron James. The interesting thing about Phil is that over 80% of his earnings came from endorsements, not winnings. That means companies ponied up alot of dough to have Phil endorse their product because they know alot of eyes are going to be on their guy. And over $50 million means that ALOT of eyes have to be on your guy. With that much money invested in a guy that isn't Tiger, you can rest assured that the PGA remain on the public's mind and on Sportscenter (sorry Joe), even without the best player in the world.
First, the idea that golf is comparable to darts is ridiculous. No, wait, not ridiculous, something stronger than ridiculous, maybe ludicrous, yeah, I'm going with that. Sure the tasks are similar, "Put a small item into a small area", but that's exactly what a pitcher in baseball is trying to do and I don't think anybody would say that baseball athletes are equivalent to dart tossers. Make no mistake, golfers are athletes. Propelling a golf ball 300+ yards is a full body activity and golfers like Camilo Villegas, Aaron Baddeley and, yes, Tiger Woods, are showing that fitness and athleticism are just as important in golf as in any other sport (yep, you are saying "what about John Daly's fat ass?" and to that I say: David Wells, Charles Barkley and Tony Siragusa).
Additionally, golf requires more precision and concentration than any other sport. As far as precision is concerned, baseball is often called "a game of inches" and this is no doubt true, but golf is much, much finer. A few hundredths of an inch makes the difference between a precise stroke and one that finds the deep rough. Another few hundredths of an inch makes the difference between a ball that stops ten feet from the pin and one that rolls right through and into a green-side bunker. The ability of a player to control his muscles to deliver a quality strike time and time again is one of the most difficult tasks in all of sport and I know this because very few people can actually do it. This also speaks to the intense concentration it takes to be a professional golfer. With rounds typically lasting more than four hours, there are few sports that require their athletes to concentration for this length of time. Football, baseball and basketball games rarely last more than 3 hours and all these sports have long breaks during which players can regroup and refocus if things aren't going correctly. Having to maintain the mental focus to perform a difficult and precise task is the very essence of sport.
On to the argument that nobody will watch golf now that Tiger is out. Umm, no, that's not true. While Woods definitely brings alot of focus on the sport, PGA tour events will continue to be widely watched, analyzed and appreciated. The two remaining majors will definitely garner attention, with the history and uniqueness of the British Open and the always competitive PGA Championship. But those two events aside, golf will remain very, very popular. How do I know this? Well, like everything else, just look at the money. Again, Tiger is the best at bringing in dollars (in both golf and all of professional sports, making a jaw dropping $127 million in 2007), but guess who was the second highest grossing professional athlete last year, that's right another golfer. Phil Mickelson made over $62 million in 2007, which is well behind Tiger, but over 50% more than the next closest athlete, Lebron James. The interesting thing about Phil is that over 80% of his earnings came from endorsements, not winnings. That means companies ponied up alot of dough to have Phil endorse their product because they know alot of eyes are going to be on their guy. And over $50 million means that ALOT of eyes have to be on your guy. With that much money invested in a guy that isn't Tiger, you can rest assured that the PGA remain on the public's mind and on Sportscenter (sorry Joe), even without the best player in the world.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Who's happy that Tiger is going to miss the rest of the golf season? This guy!
Now, that’s not to say that I take direct pleasure from the pain that others endure. That’s almost never the case. But I thank my lucky stars that Tiger Woods won’t be playing in any more tournaments this year. Am I a Tiger-hater? Not at all. Do I really like Phil Mickelson, or Ernie Els, or Vijay Singh? Nope. How, then, can I be so delighted that Tiger Woods has been sidelined?
No, the reality is that people pick up the story of the week every single tournament. Paul Goydos was the story at The Players Championship in May, and Rocco Mediate was the story at last week’s U.S. Open. And there’s another story every time golfers get together. I’m not trying to come down on the people who play golf and get these brief moments in the spotlight; I live every day hoping for those moments, and they never come.
So back to the point of this post: why am I happy that Tiger Woods has gotten himself hurt and won’t be around? Because I’m sick of golf taking up 3 minutes of SportsCenter, or thirty minutes of a sports radio show. I don’t give a whirl about how Justin Leonard was able to stave off a late surge by Biggle McBaggyPants. I don’t care about Tiger doing it either, but at least now, a lot of the big sports people will be in the same boat. The guys on Around the Horn always comment about how a golf tournament isn’t legitimate unless Tiger is playing in it. Hopefully that means they won’t talk about any for the next six months. I want golf to slip into the sports subconscious; bring it back if you must when Tiger is back, but let me have this time. Let baseball and football and basketball have this time.
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