Tiger Woods was pretty much the dominant figure in golf starting around 1997 up until recently. He was more of a golf-cyborg than a human being, and appeared to only have the limited emotional abilities of joy (shown through his vigorous fist-pumping celebrations) and rage (shown through his hatred of various golf clubs). He won all sorts of championships, and the question changed from "will he break the all-time wins record?" to "how much will he break the record by?" He was pretty much unstoppable. Once the red shirt came out on Sunday, everyone assumed he would win.
Then it stopped.
All of the sudden, Tiger was missing cuts, which was unthinkable. People blamed his knee injury and the recovery from surgery, and there were all sorts of elaborate computerized explanations of how much torque he generated before the surgery and how his new knee couldn't take it. There was talk about how the time away from the tour threw him off his game. Then there was talk about how his marital problems were to blame.
It's actually none of these things.
Tiger's problem is that he no longer is able to bang anything with a vagina like he was doing during his success. Think about it. He was either hooking up with random tail (driving a Ho-Runner if you will), or he was at home poking Elin Nordstrom or Northface or whatever her name was. This guy had to be by far the most relaxed player on the tour. His stress levels were probably hovering around "none" for every round. As long as he didn't do something stupid, like text one of his special ladies and then leave the phone where his wife could find it, he was golden. Then he did exactly that and got 9-ironed off his dome.
Then the floodgates opened. It wasn't just that one random ho that he had on the side. It was 3. Then it was 8. Then it was 12. And there's probably tons more that were on the list but couldn't definitively prove it. Now Tiger was under the microscope and having his every move watched. That meant no more random skanks, and definitely no more lovin' from his actual wife. And that meant that Tiger was constantly jacked up (going out with a loaded gun, to steal a phrase from There's Something About Mary) and lost his advantage. Plus no more sexting, which he obviously loved.
What this comes down to is that people have two choices. If they want Tiger to be a decent person, then they'll have to be satisfied with the fact that it turns out he's not going to win every tournament every time. Or, if they want the old, dominant Tiger, they're going to have to accept the fact that he's a man-whore. The Wilt Chamberlain of golf if you will. But they can't have it both ways. As long as he's being over-scrutinized, he's not going to be the golf machine from the late 90s and most of the 2000s. He needs time to unwind just like everyone else; it's just that he also needs hundreds of different women to do it. Hey, he's got enough money and he's not breaking the law. Leave the man alone.
So there the real story. Too bad no one who writes about sports for a living can tell it. At least now you can ignore all the ESPN stories about golf and read the real ones about actual sports.
-Jon
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