Dear Tiger: It's Your Conscience Speaking

The latest news in the Tiger Woods-Pro-Golfer-Gone-Wild saga is that the PGA's favorite golden boy is taking an indefinite break from golf to focus on becoming a better husband, father and person. Which of course, is good news for his wife and children, bad news for golf, I suppose, and also begs one very obvious question: Don't you think it's about time, Tiger?

Before I get started, let me just say this right up front - I have compassion for Tiger Woods. Yes, he has behaved as nothing less than a cad and as a woman who has been wronged herself, I believe he fully deserves the scorn he has received from fans, fellow golfers and women around the world.

But, I have my own collection of moral failings - also known as skeletons in the closet - and they make it very difficult for me to throw rocks at Tiger Woods. At the end of the day, we all come up short in the morality department to some degree. Tiger just did it on a more colossal scale.

What is bothering me though, is that I can't understand why it had to take nothing short of an atomic, moral implosion, complete with emotional carnage and collateral damage everywhere, before Tiger realized that perhaps he might, just might, be failing to live up to his values; Particularly when his image has been one of a wholesome, squeaky clean family man all these years.

So I can't help but ask, Tiger, was there ever a time during any of your drug and booze filled orgies that you actually thought of your wife at home? How about your daughter and your newborn son? What about your mother? Or your father, who probably single-handedly did more for your career than anyone else on this planet - did you ever think of him? What would he have thought?

Did it ever cross your mind that you were risking millions, nay, billions of dollars of product endorsements and future earnings, just to engage in cheap, meaningless sex with the type of hangers-on and opportunists that you would never, ever want to be seen in public with?

Did you ever consider the breadth of the heartbreak and the shame you would bring on those you claim to love if you were ever found out? Did you think of those who have stood with you, supported you and helped nurture the very image that has brought you so much fame, wealth and privilege? The image which has now been tarnished and damaged perhaps beyond repair? Not once? Say it ain't so, Tiger.

Like I said, I have compassion for Tiger Woods. Yea, great compassion. Though it is hard for me to grasp how someone of his stature and accomplishment could have been so supremely stupid. Yet, I know that we live in a world where cash is king and the pursuit of it at all costs is valued above all else, it seems. So, perhaps the pressure on him was just too great. I do not know.

But, I do know that I cannot say with any certainty that I wouldn't have fallen prey to the same sins and failings myself if I were walking in similar shoes. And so, no self-righteous judgment coming from me, Tiger.

I only hope, for the sake of your family, that you mean what you say. That you really do want to be a better husband, father and person and that you will seize upon this opportunity with the same single-minded focus and due diligence that you applied to a simple game called golf.

The world can survive without another golfer, Tiger. But, we can always use another man who wants to be a better husband, father and person. If you can do that, you'll be a real hero and you'll definitely still be the golden boy as far as I'm concerned.

Sources:
Tiger Woods.Com Article "Tiger Takes Hiatus from Golf"
The Sun Article "The Vice Queen"