It’s been a few weeks, and there have been so many interesting things going on … the start of a new decade, a significant election result in Massachusetts, Colts and Saints heading for the Super Bowl (a registered trademark, used without permission – uh, oh), a life-changing new product from Steve Jobs and Apple … but today I want to talk about the nine iron that Tiger Woods took to the head.

It’s amazing how someone as famous as Tiger can disappear from view, as he has over the past few weeks. Rumors of his being in a rehab center for sex addiction (come on, now), and the photos alleging to confirm those rumors, are fuzzy at best. He’s remained completely out of the public eye, which perhaps shouldn’t be that surprising considering that his luxury yacht is named “Privacy”.

What’s even more surprising, though, is that this hasn’t all become public before. How can someone who is likely to be the most famous and most recognizable athlete in the world carry on multiple affairs and not have the word get out? I don’t doubt for a minute that celebrities can get attractive women to latch onto them, but for those women to keep quiet must take a lot of trust, or, more probably, a lot of money. I don’t know these women, or any like them I suppose, but wouldn’t they want to share some exciting news like this with some close friends, or in a very large font on a Facebook page?

Here’s my take on it though, and I offer it acknowledging the risk of alienating some portion of the male species. Ready? I hope Elin divorces Tiger and takes a huge chunk of his money and property. I hope the companies that have dropped Tiger as a spokesman sustain that position, and that others don’t jump up to forgive him for the sake of sales. Don’t misunderstand me – I hope Tiger returns to the tour, plays well, and wins, and I will root for him to do so. But I also want a very clear message to come out of this, to athletes, to other celebrities, and especially to everyone else. That message is that when you give your word on something, you are expected to hold true to it, and that issuing a carefully-crafted public apology, or even a private one, does not make everything go away. There is a difference between a grown man and a 6-year-old boy. The latter can say, “I’m sorry I wrote on the wall, Mommy,” and get sent to his room without supper (oops, that room has a Wii, an HDTV, etc., etc., so it’s not much of a punishment anyway, is it?). But an adult is responsible for the actions and decisions he/she makes, and should be held accountable.

So, Elin, kick him out of the house, take whatever you and your lawyers can get (including the 9-iron, if that’s the one you feel most comfortable swinging), and let him feel some pain from this. And I hope that someone close to him has the courage to tell Tiger this undeniable truth: that his late father would be very disappointed and ashamed in what his son has done, as restoring one’s good name is never, and should never be, easy.

And, by the way, is there anyone who really believes that Tiger’s often-deranged caddy didn’t know about all of this? Uh-huh.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.