Why I'm rooting for Tiger at the Masters

What a difference two years makes in our celebrity-and-infidelity-obsessed world.

At the 2010 Masters Tournament, a lot of people were hoping serial adulterer Tiger Woods would fail -- as punishment for his off-the-golf-course sins.

Now, two years later, many folks -- and not just the folks at CBS and ESPN, which is airing the Masters in 3D* -- are rooting for Tiger to win the Masters, or at least make things interesting. And I am one of them, just as I was two years ago.














Why am I rooting for Tiger Woods to make the cut -- and make a run for the green jacket? Because I like to watch Tiger Woods play golf. Golf tournaments are just more fun to watch when Tiger is in the hunt. Just as basketball was more fun to watch when Michael Jordan played. Because it is human nature to admire those who can do things we can only dream of doing.

Did Tiger Woods screw up in his personal life? Absolutely.

Did he disappoint fans? You bet.

Does winning take care of everything**?  Pretty much. At least when it comes to sports. (Though it depends on what you mean by everything.)

So does that mean that if Woods wins the Masters people should once again treat him like some kind of hero? Hell no! (Unless he starts rescuing people from burning buildings or getting adorable kittens out of trees.)

Indeed, if anything, we need to stop treating athletes -- and actors and musicians and rich people -- like gods or heroes to be blindly worshiped and just admire them for their accomplishments and skills. And realize that despite their great gift(s), they are still human -- and bound to make mistakes.

Now go get 'em, Tiger!

*3D coverage? Really? How is that going to work? You sending people 3D glasses? Cause I didn't get mine.

** That's the controversial quote that appeared on a Nike ad featuring Tiger Woods, just after Woods reclaimed his World #1 ranking in golf a couple of weeks ago.

UPDATED 6:53 P.M. ET: Tiger finished the first round two under par (-2) at 70 and is six strokes behind the leaders, Sergio Garcia and Marc Leishman. Phil Mickelson finished one under (-1) and Rory McIlroy at even par (72). (You can check out the Masters Tournament Leaderboard here.)  

Tiger Does Augusta

[Alternate title: "Tiger Woods, Masters Bait"]

I, for one, am glad to see Tiger Woods back playing golf. Not because it gives me yet another opportunity to blog about the "sex-addicted" golfer but because, let's be honest, watching golf is way more fun/interesting when Tiger Woods is playing. And let's face it. Before Rachel and Jamie and Cori and Loredana, there was golf, Tiger's first and really only mistress.

But getting back to the Masters, which starts today, I have to say I am disappointed by Tiger's grouping with K.J. Choi and Matt Kuchar. Where's the drama? You want to ensure sky-high ratings, ESPN and CBS? You should have asked the PGA (or the folks at Augusta National) to pair Woods with Phil Mickelson and Jesper Parnevik (aka the golfer who introduced Tiger to his wife, Elin).

And speaking of ESPN and CBS, while Tiger's return to golf, at the Masters no less, poses no problem to me in terms of how to cover it, it has been posing some thorny (horny?) questions to those media organizations officially covering the Masters, as discussed in this Associated Press article.

My solution, why mention Tiger's infidelity at all? Just play the chorus of Britney Spears's song "Womanizer" whenever the camera pans to Woods.



Btw, if Tiger wants to take some of the pressure/coverage off himself, maybe he should ask his buddy, Henrik Stenson, to play a few holes in the Nike compression shorts Woods gave him after Stenson played part of the back nine at last year's CA Championship/Doral Open in his boxer briefs.

And now, let the PGA-sanctioned fore-play begin!

UPDATED 4/11/10: For those of you who (like me) didn't catch Saturday Night Live last night, you missed this great sketch with Tina Fey playing Las Vegas model and Tiger Woods expert Ashlyn St. Cloud doing commentary (and no doubt a few of the golfers) at the Masters:



Btw, so much for Tiger imploding. Going into the fourth and final day of the Masters, Woods is only four strokes off the leader, Lee Westwood, who's at -12 -- with Phil Mickelson in second place at -11. Going to be another great day of golf.

UPDATED AGAIN: Tiger Woods finishes tied for fourth with a very respectable -11 for the tournament. But the big winner is Phil Mickelson. I still have tears in my eyes from seeing him hug his caddy and then his wife, Amy, and his adorable blond children. (Please let me not find out Lefty is a cheater. It will break my heart.) All in all, an amazing golf tournament. Dare I say, masterful?

Tiger Woods kicks off 2010 Mea Culpa Tour with press conference

Tomorrow at 11 a.m. ET at the Clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Florida, golfer Tiger Woods will be kicking off the 2010 Tiger Woods Mea Culpa Tour.

Already generating the kind of buzz only befitting perhaps the world's greatest golfer and philanderer of our time, the Tiger Woods 2010 Mea Culpa Tour is also scheduled to stop at The TODAY Show (co-host Matt Lauer is an avid golfer) and on Oprah Winfrey's couch -- and no doubt at several major upcoming PGA tournaments. (The Master's begins just after Easter. Watch Tiger rise up and ascend to golfing heaven!)

Interestingly, according to National Enquirer executive editor Barry Levine (as reported on ESPN's E:60), the whole Tiger Woods mistress story was almost a non-story. Almost. As we all know what eventually happened. (Fore!)

Me, I don't really care about Tiger. Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed that the image was far from the reality. But that's the problem with our celebrity- and athlete-worshiping culture. We forget that celebrities are just actors and athletes are not heroes. They are just people who are really good at what they do -- and happen to get a lot of press coverage.

I just hope that Tiger's little coming out party won't hurt sales of the Tiger Woods Mistress Commemorative Plate Collection. (Order your set today! Supplies are limited!)



Note: For a more serious take on -- and good insight into -- Tiger Woods's upcoming no-questions-asked "press conference" check out PR Guru Peter Shankman's blog. (Shankman is also scheduled to talk about Tiger on Fox tomorrow at 11:10. But I won't hold that against him.) I also liked Richard Sandomir's article for The New York Times, "Woods Blazes a New Trail for the Celebrity Apology."

UPDATED 2/19/2010: Watched the Tiger Woods press conference and composed the following haikus:

Where were the show girls?
"Sorry" no longer hardest word.
Sorry, Elton John.

Tiger the Buddhist
Meditates on his options
Sticks it to Brit Hume

The Tiger Woods thing (UPDATED)

As we should all know by now, celebrities and professional athletes are not like you and I. So when golfer Tiger Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a neighbor's tree and a fire hydrant at 2:25 a.m. this past Friday, in the exclusive gated community of Isleworth, outside of Orlando, Florida, where Woods lives with his beautiful wife, Elin, and their two young children, the police, instead of performing a breathalyzer or any kind of test on Woods, instead asked Woods for his autograph and escorted his ambulance to the hospital.

Okay, I have no idea if the autograph and escort part is true, but from the various reports I have read, I wouldn't doubt it.

Since the accident, a lot of rumors have been floating around the Internet, on TV, in the tabloids and in the more supposedly "legitimate" newspapers as to "what really happened that night," and whether Elin Nordegren Woods had actually used that golf club to smash the back windows of her husband's Escalade to get the semi-conscious Tiger out of the vehicle, as is the Woods family's public line, or if she had used it on Tiger prior to (i.e., resulting in) his getting into the vehicle and smashing it into his neighbor's tree and a nearby fire hydrant at 2:25 a.m., as is being privately (and not-so-privately) bandied about.

Woods has declined to discuss the accident, with the Florida Highway Patrol or anyone else, saying it is a "private matter." Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. I'm not a lawyer. (And those of you are versed in this area of law, please feel free to chime in in the comments.) But I do know that if the driver of that vehicle had been some guy named Tim Woods, particularly some black guy named Tim Woods, the incident would not be a "private matter," nor would the cops have gone so easy on the guy. At the very least they would have administered a breathalyzer test or checked for alcohol or drugs.

What do I think caused Tiger to flee his house at 2:25 a.m. right after Thanksgiving and crash his car? Let's just say I don't think he was running to the store to get a quart of milk. Clearly it was either a) a domestic dispute; b) he was out of it (due to alcohol or drugs) and not thinking straight; and/or c) he was going off to meet someone on an urgent matter that couldn't wait -- which caused or was the result of a) and/or b).

Btw, if it was a "domestic dispute" over Tiger possibly being involved with another woman, would any of you be surprised to find out Woods had been driving on someone else's fairway or sinking his balls into a hole on some other, shall we say, course? If you are, you are hopelessly naive. As a good male friend once told me, there are only three reasons a guy doesn't cheat: lack of opportunity; lack of libido; and fear. Even if he has a wife as beautiful and sexy and Swedish as the former Elin Nordegren.

Frankly, I really don't care what caused the accident. I just find Woods' behavior/response underwhelming, to say the least. As a result, I believe the damage to his reputation will be (some say already is) worse than the damage he inflicted upon himself or his car, especially with the announcement that we would not be participating in the Chevron World Challenge, a charity event Woods sponsors, nor any other tournaments this year.

So, what do you think about the Tiger Woods thing? Leave me a comment.

UPDATED at 3:20 p.m.: Check out this column by the Washington Post's Sally Jenkins. I thought Jenkins nailed it.

UPDATED at 3:38 p.m.: The Florida Highway Patrol has cited Tiger Woods for careless driving, which carries a $164 fine and four points against his driver’s license. And so ends the story, at least as far as the Florida Highway Patrol is concerned. You can read more about this here.

UPDATED 12/2/09: Apparently "being human" or "not perfect" means cheating on your wife while she is pregnant with you child, or pretty much any time your on the road and are feeling horny. Btw, I am not at all surprised, just a bit sad. I mean, if a gorgeous blonde Swede can't hold onto her man, what hope is there for the rest of us? Oh, and those guys who've been calling into all the sports talk shows tut-tutting Tiger? It's all B.S. If they were in Tiger Woods' position they would have done the exact same thing.

Why men play golf

Clearly it's the superior fore play.



(Though I doubt that guy will be getting back on her fairway any time soon.)

When did women golfers get to be hot?

And I ain't talkin' temperature, people.

Some of you (like certain golf-playing second cousins of mine ; ) may have been aware of this trend. However, the existence of golf babes only came to my attention last week, after I saw (and read) an article from Time.com titled "Lady Golfers for Rent: Escort Service for Duffers" on CNN.com.

My first reaction: Who would want to rent a woman golfer? When I was growing up most of the women I saw playing golf (with the exception of my mother, a former model) basically looked like short, stocky men in too-short Lilly Pulitzer skirts and too-tight polo shirts. Not a pretty sight.

But clearly times have changed (though not necessarily the fashions) -- to the point that there is actually a list of "The 50 Hottest Female Golfers of All Time." (Fifty?! Really?! I thought, maybe five, but 50? Who knew!)

And while I may not have noticed that the LPGA had added a swimsuit competition, the attraction of attractive female golfers did not escape the eagle eye of entrepreneur and golfer Nisha Sadekar, a former LPGA prospect. Sadekar is the founder of Play Golf Designs, which for a fee, will hook you up with "one of the company's roster of beautiful female professional golfers, [who] will play a round or two with you and your co-workers at a corporate outing, with your clients who need to be schmoozed or just with you and your buddies during a bachelor party," according to the Time.com article. (Btw, my second reaction to the article was 'why is it perfectly OK to rent or hire a male pro but hiring a female pro for a few hours sounds so... dirty?')

This gives whole new meaning to the golf terms "ball washer," "banana ball," "hooker," "snake," "sweetspot" and the whole idea of "fore" play.

NOTE: The "hottie" in the picture, as a buddy just referred to her offline, is Natalie Gulbis, who came in at #1 on the list of 50 Hottest Female Golfers of All Time. Schwing!

Henrik Stenson apparently has both the balls AND the wood to win a major

THIS JUST IN: HENRIK STENSON WINS THE PLAYERS -- FULLY CLOTHED!!!

Apparently Henrik Stenson has both the balls and the wood to win a major, as he did, decisively, yesterday (Sunday). With a bogey-free round of six under 66, putting him four shots ahead of the pack, the fully-clothed Stenson won THE PLAYERS Championship, making him the first Swede to do so.

As you all may recall, from the March CA Championship (formerly known as The Doral Open), Stenson stripped down to his skivvies in order not to muddy his clothes after hitting his golf ball into a bog on the 12th -- and scored a three under 69 for the round. However, fully attired, his play suffered. Indeed, despite some masterful strokes at this year's Masters, Stenson quickly faded from the leaderboard.

But now I am happy to say, Mr. Stenson has nicely recovered -- and has an autographed pair of Tiger Woods's Nike compression shorts to boot.

For more about Stenson's win and a brief wrap-up of THE PLAYERS, click here.

I personally am hoping to see Henrik Stenson in a green jacket...

and nothing else at Augusta on Sunday, though I suppose I would also be OK if Tiger Woods, who gifted Stenson with a pair of autographed white Nike compression shorts at a recent tournament, wins (and/or disrobed).

For the record, Stenson finished the first round of the Masters fully clothed at one under par (71), six strokes behind current leader Chad Campbell (-7) and one behind Tiger (-2). However there is a 50 percent chance of precipitation today at Augusta, so things could get pretty muddy pretty fast. And you know what that could mean...

In any case, I am looking forward to some fore play this weekend -- and will be following the live coverage (or uncoverage) of the Masters, which begins at 4 p.m. today on ESPN.

Apparently Henrik Stenson has the balls to play golf

The big story out of the Doral Open (aka the CA Championship) this past week was not the return of Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson's masterful play but this guy, Henrik Stenson*, a 32-year-old Swedish golfer who clearly has balls. [SEE BOTTOM -- of post -- FOR THE LATEST ON HENRIK!]

After hitting his ball (the official one) into a bog on the 12th, Stenson, not wishing to take a double bogey or muddy his attire, stripped down to his skivvies to recover his ball -- and game. (Just keep pretending to look at the scorecard, sweetheart.)

"Because of the mud I couldn't really afford to play in any of my clothes as they would have been a real mess down the last six or so holes so I had no option," Stenson explained. Uh huh.

Stenson's final score for the round, a three under 69.

All I can say is J-TWO-O will now be covering (or uncovering) Mr. Stenson a lot more often.

UPDATED 3/15/09 at 11:15 A.M.: Just saw this amusing post titled "Five Golfers We Hope Pull A Henrik Stenson (And Five We Don’t)" and wanted to share. Agree? Disagree? Got some names to add to either list? Let me know via a comment. Btw, I'll be watching the CA Championship (when did it stop being the Doral Open?) this afternoon, and will let you know if I spot any near-naked golfers. (That Nick Watney looks kinda cute... )

UPDATED 3/16/09 at 7:40 A.M.: Apparently, clothing encumbers Mr. Stenson's play as he shot 73, 73, and 83 the remaining rounds of the CA Championship, putting him practically in last place for the tournament (though still first in many female hearts). As expected (?) "Lefty" Phil Mickelson, he of the "man boobs," finished first, though relative newbie Nick Watney put up a strong fight, finishing second. (Tiger finished nine strokes back.) As for me, I hope we will be seeing more of Mr. Stenson in future golf tournaments.

UPDATED 5/11/09: HENRIK STENSON WINS A MAJOR, THE PLAYERS -- FULLY CLOTHED!!! Apparently Henrik Stenson has both the balls and the wood to win a major, as he did, decisively yesterday (Sunday). With a bogey-free round of 6-under 66, putting him four shots ahead of the pack, the fully-clothed Stenson won THE PLAYERS Championship, making him the first Swede to do so. For more about Stenson's win at THE PLAYERS, click here.


*For more pictures of Mr. Stenson in the buff -- I mean rough -- click on the link.