Lock Up Your Daughters: Tiger is Back

Sitting in front of a television mired in the depths of an annual tryptophan coma this past Thanksgiving, I read the newsflash plastered on the front page of every media outlet in the country. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus’ heir-apparent as the best golfer in history, was being rushed unconscious to the hospital after slowly driving over a fire hydrant on the side of his driveway. Curious speculation inevitably followed; was he drunk? How badly was he hurt?
While details about the specifics of the incident were slow to emerge, eventually it became clear that while authorities were busy trying to revive Mr. Woods, Mrs. Woods was brushing bits of Tiger’s face off of an eight-iron and quietly placing it back in the garage. The iconic image of a woman scorned is her seeking retribution while wielding a golf club. Irony would have it that the most famous golfer in the world got caught with his hand in a number of cookie jars, to put things lightly.
Long considered one of the most intensely private professional athletes with regards to personal matters, Woods was now facing constant media scrutiny surrounding his infidelities, rapidly diminishing sponsorship opportunities and vulgar text messages he sent to pretty much every woman he’d ever met.
However, there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel for Tiger, and that light comes in the form of the 2010 Masters. His sexual-addiction rehabilitation stint has been completed (14 straight days of watching Betty White do a shot-by-shot remake of the 1995 movie /Showgirls/, sources say), his Swedish supermodel wife has graciously accepted a multi-million dollar “I’m really sorry” and all is right with the world as Tiger’s extensively repaired face has been spotted back on the links.
But Tiger’s return to competitive golf at Augusta National does not necessarily signal the end of the nightmare of the last five months.
Will last month’s “tearful” press conference where he sorta-kinda-almost apologized suffice, or will the court of public opinion decide to hold Tiger Woods accountable, above all the other lecherous celebrities we are likely to ignore? Jesse James cheated on Sandra Bullock recently with a bucket of tattoo ink, and he hasn’t received even a fraction of the animosity that Woods has. The Pope failed to defrock a catholic priest in Wisconsin who sexually molested 200 deaf boys at his school, and even he is fighting for airtime against revelations that Tiger Woods spent nine hours in the Hawaiian Tropic bus listening to Barry White.
What kind of performance, then, should we expect to see out of Woods during this year’s Masters Tournament? He is not the first professional athlete to be involved with a moral grey area in their personal life. John Terry, a married man and former captain of England’s soccer team, had an affair with a teammate’s underwear model girlfriend, and England still seems to be on track to be dangerous in June’s World Cup. Ray Lewis, star linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, killed a man and went on to be named the NFL MVP (though, in reality, who was going to be the one to tell him he didn’t win?). Even in golf, John Daly admitted to an extra-marital affair, though that admission received significantly less media attention when it became clear that his mistress was an extra large bucket of KFC original recipe and twelve Budweiser’s.
From international golden child to reviled pariah, Tiger Woods now turns back to the game which enabled him to begin illicit relationships with sticky MTV reality show losers and late-night talk show porn stars in the first place.
But which Tiger will we see? The one with nearly 100 professional victories including 14 majors, or a broken man missing puts as penance for his guilt?
Either way, the manicured fairways of a course in Georgia will play host to one of the most compelling dramas professional golf has ever seen.