Picture from espn.com
I think we're going to make this a weekly feature, mocking at least one internet writer. Because I'm such a successful, wealthy, and established writer that I can do things like this, clearly. Anyway, we start with Rick Reilly. Rick's words in bold, mine in regular type.
Here is the question now about this new, softer, calmer, suddenly huggable Tiger Woods:
You mean huggable in the sense that he hooked up with so many women who literally hugged him? Because there is no other way this guy is huggable. He must smell like bad sex all the time. Most of the adjectives in that sentence don't actually mean anything. New? Ehhh. What the hell is softer?
What if the same insatiable hunger that fueled his sex drive is the same insatiable hunger that fueled his golf drive?
What if becoming a better person makes him a lesser golfer?
Being forced to stop banging chicks who are not your wife to avoid losing more sponsors and money in a divorce do not make you a better person.
I remember when Woods was 21 and leading the 1997 Masters by 12 shots with only four holes to play. It was basically a coronation parade in spiked shoes. On 15, he hit a meaningless shot from the rough that, for some reason, just fried his brain. He reached back and slammed down his club, just missing the skull of a small boy who'd snuck close just to touch him.
And I thought: Oh, my God. Nothing's ever going to be enough for this kid.
You really thought that based on one shot, when that's something most golfers do after a bad shot? That's kind of creepy.
As a golf fan, you have to wonder: Now that he says he's changed, will his hit-man instincts change, too?
He is not a hit-man. He does not kill people. He is very good at playing golf. It seems that he has hit-man instincts because he is so good at golf.
After 45 days of addiction therapy and four months of shame and three years of "lying to myself," you wouldn't have recognized the man who sat before the world Monday in his first press conference since he knocked over a fire hydrant and ignited his life.
I recognized him. He looks exactly the same and talked exactly the same, except this time it was about sexing porn stars. If it were on mute I would have thought he were talking about some boring golf tournament.
Woods said things like:
"Did you see the rack on the girl working in the gift shop? Jesus, I have to get her number lat-- Shit. Uh... I played well today."
"I just took it all in today [on his practice round]."
Oh. Well that's boring.
(This from a guy who I once saw blow by Nike chairman Phil Knight and his own mother, Tida, outside the Augusta National clubhouse like they were patio chairs.)
"My anecdotal evidence based on a contextless situation proves that Tiger is a horrible man!"
And ... "I want to be able to help people. ... If I win championships along the way, so be it."
And ... "It's not about championships. It's about how you live your life."
(OK, I'm really going to have to see some ID.)
That's our first rimshot moment.
Look, worldwide humiliation and the fear of losing your family will change a man. I hope Woods really does believe it's about the way you live your life and not about championships. But what if the very traits that left him in the TMZ gutter -- self-obsession, a limitless appetite for domination, me-first-ism to the extreme -- are the same traits that delivered those championships?
Tiger Woods will not suddenly be bad at golf because he can't cheat on his wife anymore. You can't just connect things that happen in his life and assume he'll now suck at golf.
I hope not, but you wonder. We don't usually build statues of nice, helpful, well-balanced men.
There are literally hundreds of statues that would like to have a word with you right now, such as Jesus, Martin Luther King, and of course Endy Chavez.
Exhibit A: Ben Hogan. A tournament winning machine and, by all accounts, one of the most miserable curs to ever stripe a 2-iron.
A cur, you say! Why I challenge you to a duel, you rapscallion!
Exhibit B: Michael Jordan. Did you hear his Hall of Fame speech? Seven years after he'd won everything, he was still trying to step on his enemies' Adam's apples.
Michael Jordan is an asshole. This is not a secret. He is an asshole who is the best basketball player ever. Why should it matter?
Exhibit C: Barry Bonds. Seven MVPs and almost as many friends.
Jesus I would be truly shocked to learn that Barry Bonds has seven friends.
Brad Faxon is a nice guy. Fred Funk, too. But Tiger Woods? He used to be the guy who ran the sword through your spleen, then danced on your corpse. Is that guy gone?
Hyperbole! "We'll miss the Tiger the serial killer/golfer, and especially the Tiger who blotted out the sun as a way to force residents of his community to pay him for power."
I once took a back-country snowcat ski trip with a bunch of buddies in Colorado.
Ooh another anectdote!
Turned out Woods and his buddies had rented the snowcat the week before. I asked the guide how Woods skis.
"I've never seen a guy get so mad at himself," the guide said. "He's just learning, but every time he'd fall, he'd throw his poles and swear. He wanted to beat his buddies down the hill so bad."
He's programmed to be the best. The only professional job he's ever had is to literally be the best person ever to play his sport.
In addiction therapy, you hear these words a hundred times: acceptance, serenity, vulnerability. But not in a million years would you have heard those words applied to pre-hydrant Woods. The words arrogant, unquenchable, bulletproof, maybe.
This is not relevant to playing golf.
If Tiger Woods is going to save his marriage and save his life, he'll have to be unselfish in the ultimate selfish game. Can't you just see it? He's studying a putt when he suddenly looks up and goes, "No, go ahead, take the call, ma'am. I'm in no hurry."
Playing golf to win does not make you a selfish person. He's not beating people with clubs on his way to the hole. He just has to get a lower score than other people who are playing the same game as him.
He vows no more "entitlement." But Tiger Woods always played as though the trophy had his name engraved on it when he showed up Tuesday.
I don't understand this part. How can you play a full four days of golf as if you'd already won? I think that would just make him an even better golfer if he could win a tournament despite dicking around for four days.
He vows to "tone down my negative outbursts and ... my positive outbursts." But can he win without the fist pump? Can he win without passion?
I think he's referring to having his caddy take people's cameras away, not pumping his fist. Unless he's pumping that fist into someone's face, which would make for great television.
He vows to follow Buddhism, but Buddhism teaches "the greatest effort is not concerned with results." Has the Buddha heard of Jack Nicklaus?
"I'm going to make a blanket statement about a religion based on one contextless quote that says you should note compete."
Who knows? Maybe this whole Tiger Woods 2.0 will be even better on the course. He talked Monday about finally having "fun" again playing golf. He talked about wanting to find "balance."
So... you're saying that there was really no need for this column
Who had his life in better balance than Nicklaus himself, who loved tennis as much as golf and his wife more than the two combined?
Equation of Jack Nicklaus' life, where g = golf, t = tennis, and w = wife: 2w = .5t + .5g
I'm thrilled for Woods that he seems to have found the first few rungs of a very long ladder out of his troubles. Even his face seemed lighter and brighter than it did last year.
Ugh.
Maybe all those creepy secrets sag right through your mind to your eyelids. He seems to finally understand that even though his own father painted him as a god walking the earth, the same mortal rules apply to him: You can't cheat on your wife with your own personal harem and figure you can get away with it. But you wonder if golf's truest rule will also apply: 99 percent of the field loses.
I had a brief seizure because of the above sentences because, well, just read them.
Toward the end of Monday's press conference, somebody asked Woods if he almost "wanted" to get caught.
"Oh, yeah, it was all part of my grand plan. I'm so excited that everyone hates me and I lost a lot of money and maybe my wife, it all worked out so well for me."
He shook his head and said, "All I know is, I acted just terribly, poorly, made just incredibly bad decisions, and decisions that hurt so many people close to me. That's enough."
Translation: Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamit.
So there it is. The kid finally got enough.
Nah he just finally got caught, otherwise he'd be in a hot tub with Penny Flame right now.
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