Tiger Returns to the PGA

Even though Earl Woods (two combat tours in Vietnam) had much to offer on the subject, Tiger's father may have taught him little about honor and even less about courage based on Tiger's deportment during the last year. Perhaps the lessons were taught but Tiger made little notice of the lessons of a father that had been in harms way and experienced racial segregation first hand. Insulating himself with enough layers of lawyers and P.R. people to accommodate at least three sports mega- stars, Tiger got back in real touch with the people that underwrite his fortune. He addressed them with all the sincerity of a corporate executive pushing an apology for a product that had merely disappointed its customers.

Tiger then chooses to return to golf, but not just any tournament, he chooses the Masters. But why the Maters? Facing your fans or detractors or perhaps both embodied in one fan at a venue like the Masters where a critic a little too vocal about Tiger's behavior could lose a ticket it took 20 + years to acquire is not facing your detractors or fans. Hiding behind the fears of loyal golf fans afraid of losing the best ticket in golf is like hiding behind the skirt of a the wife you have treated like dirt and getting away with it because she's preoccupied with protecting her children.

Watching Anthony Kim during an interview at the Shell Huston Open say that he took himself too seriously the previous year and took too much for granted and realized how lucky he was to be making money in this endeavor. Padraig Harrington smiling through good shots and bad making his way along the course interacting with his fans. Phil Mickelson staying at the volunteers tent long past the end of his round shaking hands with the people that make the tournament and its charitable work truly possible. Theses are the images of golf that endure. I long for and seek those images out to show my children about what golf has to offer and can ultimately teach. Tiger can be apart of that enduring image again rather than the singular image of a happy winner and a sore loser. He just has to let the rest of us teach him and that can start with him looking over the other side of the ropes and smiling, perhaps even smiling at one of his detractors rather than having them summarily removed from the grounds.

What serious golf fans must ask is why is Tiger returning now, why the Masters and what does he hope to gain besides the championship. Perhaps it is just the championship. But what I think he is really testing is the gullibility of the American public. Or perhaps their tolerance for the crap that attends their alleged heroes that deftly catch, throw or swing at a ball better than the rest of us while garnering exorbitant salaries all the while cheating with steroids, on their wives, with the bookies or on their taxes etc. Unfortunately for the true fans of the sport of golf, the rest of the public, with their endless preoccupation with wealth and celebrity, will bow and scrape before these 'heroes' who are so much more flawed than the worst of the adoring masses.

The more willing sports fans are to sell their affections cheaply, the more their alleged heroes will take them for granted. If their heroes even give a dam in the first place.