This just in: Tiger Woods is human

First appeared on August 11th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

In December of 1975 Earl and Tida Woods welcomed their son Eldrick Tont (Tiger) Woods into the world. That’s right, he came out screaming and covered with cow snot just like the rest of us. He is not, contrary to popular opinion, the incarnation of Eastern Blok scientists laboring for a new class of super-athlete capable of resurrecting the iron curtain through the domination of American sport, or a castaway from the third planet from Altar. There’s a real human being under that black swoosh hat and red polo.


Coming off one of the worst finishes of his career at the Bridgestone Invitational over the weekend, Tiger’s troubles on and off the course are center stage again. Like the Bat Signal glowing on the horizon, we’ve seen the headlines of a very public divorce and turned out en masse to rescue our hero by dumping advice on him like toxic waste in a Jersey landfill.

Diagnoses range from his having a George Steinbrenner-like relationship with swing coaches to the obvious inability to focus as his world crumbles before him on the most public of stages.

Before I go on, allow me to stray from my point like a poorly struck 3 wood. But if anything, his performance this weekend has simply affirmed what many of us have known all along. Golf is the most frustrating sport in the history of man. And as we watched the myth that was Tiger Woods slowly deflating to human form Sunday let it be a reminder that no man is above the media. And don’t kid yourself, even as bad he’s playing right now, you’re better off dancing in the fairway to “Anyway you Want It” Rodney-Dangerfield-style than going so far as to fool yourself that your game will ever approach his.

The thing that gets lost in all of this is that Woods is a human being just like you and I. Well, I guess I shouldn’t speak for you considering the Japanese have robots capable of reading newspapers to the elderly and those too young to read. Yes Woods can make a golf ball do amazing things, but the basic fact remains there are grocery clerks who possess skills Tiger does not.

Who knows what they are. Maybe Woods can’t change a spark plug or read Latin, whatever it is for every one Tiger there are 10,000 others out there whose skills are just as, if not more, valuable. It’s just too easy to turn on ESPN and forget ours is a diverse world full of people with varying strengths (the most by far being outside the sports world). The hang up is, at least in our culture, the value that we place on athletic skill is undoubtedly out of balance.

Which brings me to my point. This isn’t about Tiger Woods. This is more about how wrapped up in sports we can get. Sports are entertainment, a wonderful form of escape. We love sports, but in true American fashion watching sports simply isn’t enough; we want more (see the Louisiana Purchase or Oprah starting her own network). We want our athletes to be other-worldly. We don’t want them to be ordinary people with everyday problems.

Perhaps in Tigers case everyone is to blame. We as a public for rubbernecking at Woods like a train on hippo collision and Tiger for not taking a break from the tour to focus on getting his personal life together. Either way we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that he’s only a few shanked tee balls away from being the accountant living down the street.