For Tiger Woods, losing could beat winning
By Bill Wallace / Bridge News
There are reasons to root against Eldrick "Tiger"
Woods during the current U.S. Open Championship at Bethesda, Md.
A cornucopia of reasons. Let's begin with maturity and mammon.
The trouble with Tiger Woods, 21-year-old son of Earl and Kultida
Woods, is that his golf game, probably the best in the world,
has swept him off the links to other, complicated plateaus.
This youth, so charming, so engaging, now belongs to the world
of celebrity, with which America seems so addicted. Consider that
Oprah Winfrey has called him "America's son," a heavy
burden indeed.
The celebrity world, however, is one laced with entrapments,
as Woods has begun to discover.
The suggestion here is that Tiger, before celebrity makes him
cynical and suspicious, would be better off not winning the U.S.
Open, but finishing fifth, let's say.
He certainly will have plenty of other chances, so what's the
hurry?
Tiger needs more time, not more money. His endorsement deals
with Nike, Titleist, Rolex and American Express amount to about
$90 million and thus exceed the millions he will win with his
golf clubs.
Woods needs the maturity that only time can give him.
One experience he will not repeat is trusting unscrupulous
journalists. An irresponsible free-lancer, Charles Pierce, included
in an otherwise fine profile for GQ magazine some scatological
jokes Woods allegedly told.
These tarnished the perfect image of America's son.
Perhaps time, too, can provide judgment about casual colloquy.
When Woods did not do well in a recent tournament, he said he
had been playing his "C" game, not his "A"
one.
He hardly meant that he was holding anything back. But the
comment annoyed his peers, whom he has eclipsed in so many ways.
Some felt that he was denigrating them.
On another occasion, he skipped the usual concluding interview
in the tournament press tent. He later explained that he had not
finished first, second or third in the tournament, so what was
the use? That made the usually mild golf media growl.
Celebrity comes with its price. Everything said is examined.
Dennis Rodman, the basketball player, can joke that the next
team he wants to play for is the "Utah Polygynists,"
and get away with it.
However, the 35-year-old Rodman is established at the low end
of the celebrity spectrum while Woods is at the other end, the
innocent end of America's son.
Woods does not need to win another major tournament at this
time, according to Tom Lehman, a competitor.
Lehman said, in a New York Times interview on the eve of the
Open, "I feel like Tiger's been put up on this pedestal where
he's untouchable. But I really don't see Tiger Woods and then
the rest of us. I say let's give everybody else some credit."
Lehman did not believe that Woods has been overrated but that
so many others by comparison are now underrated: the Greg Normans,
the Nick Faldos, the Nick Prices and, yes, the Tom Lehmans.
Only 10 weeks have gone by since Woods won The Masters tournament
with a record score and hugged his father so hard and so long
on the last green. That blend of athletic achievement and family
emotion sealed his celebrity.
Already in place were the ancillary props of athletic fame
and fortune, such as Tiger's corporation, ETW, presided over by
his father, Earl, and the new million-dollar home for his parents
in Tustin, Calif.
Coming soon after was the purchase of a $3 million lot within
Isleworth, a gated development in Orlando, Fla., upon which will
be built a home and a par-3 golf course.
Then there is the Tiger Woods Foundation, the purpose of which
is to encourage minority youth to take up golf. American Express,
in making its deal with Woods, agreed to a $1 million commitment
to the foundation. Master Card lost out in part because it did
make a similar offer.
Cashing in the celebrity life can become increasingly complicated,
as Tiger Woods will discover.
He could ask Greg Norman, whose widespread business activities
became so distracting that they rusted his golf game. Another
distraction happened when the president of the United States came
to visit him at his home in Hobe Sound, Fla., tripped on a step
and tore a ligament in his right knee.
Will Woods find it difficult not to win this tournament, which
ends on Father's Day? Hardly. Remember that in his last tournament
before the Open, the rain-plagued Memorial Tournament at Muirfield
in Ohio, he finished 67th.
His final time through the par-4 third hole took nine strokes.
Keep it up, Tiger.
William N. Wallace has viewed the American sporting scene in
various poses, chiefly as a daily journalist for New York City
newspapers, and as a book author and curmudgeon essayist for specialist
publications. He is also a sportsman of the outdoor kind: a hiker,
jogger, paddler, sailor, skier. His base is Westport, Conn.
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