For the average golfer, springtime is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the weather’s nicer, the golf clubs can come out of hiding from behind the Halloween decorations in the garage, beer can be supped in front of a fairway instead of in front of a television and most of us can’t remember how much the dogleg on Hole Four frustrated us all last year.

On the other hand, short of a few special courses, the greenskeepers of your public and even of the private courses haven’t fully manicured them yet. Greens are long, roughs are, well, rough, there’s no lemonade in the periodic dispensers. It can be unbearable, man.

Even in Japan, the back nine of the Miya Hill 36 coulda used a watering:

A golfer literally burned up the back nine of a golf course when an iron shot apparently ignited a fire that burned about 900 square meters of fairway and rough, according to the police.

The police believe the club’s impact with the ball created a spark that started the fire on extremely dry grass at Miya Hill 36 Golf Club in Taiwacho, Miyagi Prefecture, on Saturday.

Firefighters and golf club staffers extinguished the fire 25 minutes after it started. No one was injured in the incident.

According to the police, the fire occurred when a golfer in his 50s from the prefecture hit a 5-iron out of the rough on the 513-yard 17th hole at about 1:20 p.m.

Honest question: Would starting a fire with your swing fill you with confidence in the future or dread?

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Photo courtesy of Flickr

Is there any way Mr. Woods is going to let this spread to train stops, billboards, loony bins or wherever else PETA has deemed it strategically useful to advertise?

Probably not, but it seems that getting sued is actually part of the organization’s guerrilla ad strategy.

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Literally no woman is safe from Tiger’s advances.

Yeah. This story just got soap opera-y.

And no soap is complete without a little scum, so I can only wonder why the fact that Tiger Woods’ attractive 30-year-old wife has an equally attractive 30-year-old identical twin sister hasn’t become a bigger deal.

I don’t want to hear about journalistic ethics or a disinterested public or someone’s right to privacy. Not now. Not with this case. All those particulars bounced out of the Land Rover and got pummeled with a golf club right alongside Tiger.

For six weeks, the entire world has speculated or regurgitated someone else’s speculation about the goings-on of Tiger Woods and his harem of ladies, why is there not more chatter about Josefin Lönnborg even existing!?

Look, I’m not painting a picture with my dirty brush, okay. This is not a call to drag Mrs. Lönnborg into a mess she is in no way involved in. But her sister is involved in this mess. Quite a mess, really. It might not be such a depraved idea to suggest the two sisters have strategize this mix-up to their advantage, “Parent-Trap”-style.

Elin’s wearing her wedding ring. Now she’s not. She’s in Sweden. She’s in Florida. She used to be so neat and tidy and suddenly she’s rebellious. After a while, the press would know that they never knew which was Tiger Woods’ wife and which was boring ol’ Josefin. Nordegren hasn’t any hope of stopping the irresponsible media outlets that don’t care to check sources or print retractions, but she can punk more than a few reliable outlets into backing off out of constant fear of being wrong.

So maybe they both vacation in Fiji and slip into the woman’s room where paparazzi can’t (shouldn’t) follow. One comes out, followed by the other. Did they switch clothes? Why aren’t either wearing a wedding ring? Did neither of them switch clothes and they are who they appear to be? “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!”

Three weeks ago, everything was different for Tiger Woods. That’s not that long ago. Twenty-one days ago, he was a billionaire who changed the game of golf forever and did it as a pillar of society.

He was John Galt … if John Galt had infidelity issues. Which, I guess would make him Henry Reardon. Either way, he was better than us.

Some might cringe at the suggestion that anyone is better than anyone else. Don’t cringe. It’s unbecoming. Your face looks vaguely reptilian when you scrunch it up like that. Relax your muscles and realize that we encouraged Woods to be better than us. It’s what he was selling, and seeing as how he’s a billionaire, I’d say we were happy to buy it.

Tiger Woods, in reality, isn’t worse than the other athletes with front page scandals. Kobe Bryant may or may not have raped someone (he definitely fooled around). Mike Tyson had his fair share of lady-problems. Michael Jordan is a gambling addict. Pete Rose too.  Charles Barkley drives recklessly with lady friends. Ray Lewis and O.J. Simpson have both been suspected of murder. Manny Pacquiao has cheated on his wife at least once and is under scrutiny for having recently done it again. Andre Agassi wore a wig. Plaxico Burress wore sweatpants in public. Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Milli-Vanilla … they all lipsynched their songs. That’s pretty bad, no?

Tiger Woods? All he did was treat his wife like Tony Soprano treated Carmela. And that show was on HBO for eight years! People loved it. So why has it only taken three weeks for Woods to go from pillar to pariah? He’s still great at golf, right? Why is everyone leaving? Where’s everyone going? And why?

Tiger Woods sold himself – not his skill – to the public. His ability to hit a golf ball with power and accuracy is why we cared to examine Woods further, sure, but he made his fortune from the public measuring ourselves against him. And just as one can only measure something accurately if it is shorter than the measuring stick, so too was it true that Tiger Woods had to be better than all of us in order to see how we stacked up.

People get upset if you lie about the skills you have. They’ll drop you forever if you lie about the kind of person you are.

No one ever believed Bryant was perfect. He was always cunning and a teensy bit cold. A hard worker, always. But a good man? I dunno. Probably not. Because he never seemed like he cared to be liked. He cared to be respected. Same thing with Jordan or Armstrong. They never wrapped their personal lives in with their profession. The media tried (they always try), but fans know the difference between the media connecting the dots and the athlete doing it for them.

Woods carved out a place for himself in the public eye as a family man and a son who’d learned the lessons taught to him by a loving family and heckuva father. The media didn’t connect those dots. His advertisers did. They packaged it, sent it out and if you were one of the millions who bought it, then this has been a nasty three weeks for you too. Not as bad as Tiger, but still bad. Bad because his connection with his family, the institute of marriage and the lessons handed down through generations of fathers was something that many of us aspire to. Hell, it’s something that many of us achieve. Just like Tiger Woods. I can’t hit a golf ball more than 250 yards, I haven’t been able to dunk in five years and I’m scared of a 97 mph fastball, but I can raise a family. I can learn from my parents and be a real man.

Just like Tiger Woods.

Unless I can’t, just like Tiger Woods. Unless it’s as impossible as sinking a 40-foot putt. Because if John Galt isn’t perfect, then true brilliance must be a myth. And if this ruler isn’t accurate, what does that say about everything I’ve measured with it?

But I promised you a silver lining, didn’t I? A bright side to what has shaken more lives than any athlete should be able.

The bright side here is that Tiger Woods was, and to some, is, a man among men. Someone who meant more than just golf. Maybe by tearing him down, people will learn to stop building guys like him up so high. The word I’m looking for here is skepticism. But a more deeply-rooted skepticism than before.

Those who never found room for sports in their lives will continue to scoff. Let ‘em. Nothing to be done about them. Those who looked to athletes and the games they played as something that could save them … well, they still can, they’re just going to have to be careful now. More aware. Less accepting. So next time, we’ll all pause before selecting our heroes. We’ll pause to decide if we even want to select a hero.

It’s not that the public will slay potential superstars from developing, it’s that we’ll be paying attention to their development. It’ll be a defensive tactic. A way to protect ourselves from more falsehoods. We won’t get fooled again. Greatness on the playing field will always be awarded with accolades. Bet on it.  It’s how we think about these men and women once the exit the playing field that needs to change, because that’s what hurts us.

Had we been told 15 years ago that Tiger Woods was a) going to be the most miraculous golfer of this or, perhaps, any other generation and b) he will demonstroubly cheat on his wife for years with multiple people, how would it have affected the way we look at Tiger Woods today?

Could it be much worse than how things have played out these last three weeks?

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Photos courtesy of Flickr

…I’m totally getting rid of my Gillette razor.

What? The Patriots got punched in the mouth on Monday? Well, were they at home when it happened? No? Well, still …

I’m sure no one would argue today that Tiger Woods has been a good thing for golf. I was in high school when he was just deciding to turn pro and subsequently whipping everyone else’s butts the second he did. This made it a lot more accessible to me as here was this guy only a few years older than I was dominating a sport that I’d written off in my first 15 or so years of life as ‘an old man’s sport.’
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It’s the top draw for people with only a passing interest in golf. Your embarrassing uncle, (you know, the one you have to remind to “dress nicely” to go to Applebee’s, and thinks real men play football and that’s it)? He’s not going to sit down and watch a golf tournament, but if it’s on, the first comment is no longer “change that crap!” but rather “Hey, how’s Tiger doing?” A sports bar might have a TV turned to the U.S. Open as long as he’s got a good shot.  And if you do watch an entire day’s worth of major golf tournament coverage on TV, have you ever noticed how it seems like half the broadcast is dedicated to how Tiger Woods is doing and where he’s at? Yeah, that’s not a coincidence.
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The thing is, I also remember the time before Woods turned pro. My dad was always a fan of the game, so I remember hearing “Greg Norman”, “Tom Lehman” or “Fred Couples” thrown around, usually a guy seemed to have a good run of a year or so, and then the talk was on to someone new. But the name of the year was “Tiger Woods” in 1999…and then it’s the same in 2000. And 2001. He doesn’t play for over half a year in 2008 and it’s still all anyone wants to talk about. And it doesn’t hurt that the advertising world has tried to convince everyone to drink his sports drink, wear his watch, use his razor.
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It’s great now, but could all of this eventually be bad for golf and its popularity?
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I’m thinking of it this way: In the beginning there was golf. And you can guess that golf tended to be followed largely by those you may have collectively referred to as “the man.” Your dad, your Driver’s Ed instructor, your English professor who dared to give your papers “D’s” after you had woken up a whole 20 minutes early to scratch something out just before class..

Along comes Tiger Woods. He’s young, which is always exciting. He’s fit, he’s good-looking and he wears a lot of red so it’s kind of hard not to notice him even if he wasn’t sending balls he teed up in Augusta through your back window. (Note: Where you live is irrelevant to this statement. It’s like those tricks where you think of a number, do all these calculations and get your original number. It works every time.)
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But here’s the question to think about – and Tiger fans, bear with me for a moment – but what happens when he is no longer on the PGA Tour? Of course you lose the fair-weather fans. That’s a given. It’s like when a team trades mid-season for a great player that they know they can’t sign long-term. These fans are nothing more than rentals. But I feel like there’s this “on-the-fence” group as well. There’s people who tune in, have some interest, pay some attention to “those other 124 guys” on the Tour and anyone else who happens to show up. But right now they’re getting spoiled.
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Golf is different than a team sport where fans have a rabid interest in their favorite team and vehemently despise their main opponents. Sure, a person may have his favorites, but the casual fan just likes to see guys win because they’re recognizable. A name you know and know performs well can go pretty far in the average person’s enjoyment of golf. So when the most recognizable name on the PGA Tour is gone, I can see it taking a big fan-hit from people who never saw a reason to learn who Angel Cabrera or really any of the 2009 major winners were because Tiger is always going to come back. You know he won’t follow 2010 without a major win like in 2009.
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But what happens in 2026? When Mr. Woods is busy polishing his 712th championship trophy and there’s no big name to take his place because this was the big name for professional golf? I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing golf’s popularity takes a U.S. Economy 2008-sized hit. On the plus side, this could be just the boost the Champions Tour needs.

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Photo courtesy of Flickr

Why doesn’t anyone care about the Champions Tour? I realize most people could probably go down the PGA Tour Schedule and classify it something like “Tiger, Boring, Tiger, Tiger, Boring, Tiger, Boring, Boring, hey look, Tiger plays in that one too!”

But even among golf fans, the Champions Tour events are largely ignored. Is it because by the time these heavyweight players have been mostly relegated to the “Geezer Tour” fans figure it’s lost some of the excitement and glamour?  I think ChiChi doing the ChaCha over there on the left in his sassy green pants begs to differ. You can’t even make the argument that it’s golf-lite or anything like that, since I seem to recall a certain 60-year-old recently holding his own with the kids for about 98 percent of a major tournament. Not to mention that this Greg Norman guy was close to doing the same last year. (And choked of course, but 1980s Norman choked too, it’s not a sign of aging.)

Champions Tour events are more like a gathering of all the best we’ve seen over the past couple decades. It’s The Beatles’ No. 1’s album. It’s the best of Aerosmith or The Police, except without the remastering. These are the masters. And really, what other sport is lucky enough to have the opportunity to relive history like this, even after Tiger and Phil and a slew of Asian teenagers have swooped in to take their place on the main stage? Imagine how much interest this concept would gather in other sports:

Football Let’s try this for a warm-up exercise. Raise your hand if you hate the Dallas Cowboys. Raise your hand if you hate the Denver Broncos. Ok, hands down. Now raise your hand if you’d like to see the early 90s Cowboys take on the late 90s Broncos. What, there’s still some hands down? Fine, raise your hand if you’d rather see that than watch the Detroit Lions get slaughtered again on Thanksgiving Day.

I thought as much.

Basketball If you were both alive and able to create memories when the Detroit “Bad Boys” had their run over Jordan’s Bulls and the Bulls saw their ultimate retribution come to pass in the following years, consider yourself lucky. Those were great times for the sport. But now we’re a mess of tattoos and a wedding dress, a failed baseball career, a sexual harassment suit (and maybe a couple other interesting lawsuits) later. Someone set up a rematch, same guys, same teams. This has the potential to be the greatest battle since “Bring It On III.”

Hockey Actually this might be a moot point once we get to hockey. Claude Lemieux came back last season? Theo Fleurry this year? I’m pretty sure Chris Chelios died five years ago and continues to shop out his reanimated corpse instead and no one ever noticed. The only difference here is that while it’s fun to see the old favorites strap on the pads and take to the ice again, most have proven that they can’t exactly hang with the young dogs anymore.

Baseball Well…the thing about baseball is that the further we reach back, the more we find out about them dipping into the Sauce. And I’m not talking about liquor. Or Hollandaise. I’m not denying that a meeting of Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Jose Canseco wouldn’t be entertainment, I’m just not sure an actual baseball game would ever break out.

The point is this with the Senior PGA, here’s a group that chooses not to just kick back in their mansions or their vacation homes in the Caribbean when they retire at age 50. This is a group that truly enjoys what they do and still do it pretty damn well. If only we, as spectators, were so lucky in all sports.