Never Apologize, It's a Sign of Weakness

How awesome would it have been last week if Tiger Woods had simply walked to the podium, said "I am Tiger Woods", smirked at the cameras and reporters, high-fived a caddy and walked away? We would have needed to invent a new awesome scale.

I didn't watch the Tiger Woods apology last week. I didn't listen to it on the radio. I didn't read a transcript or search the internet for clips. I tried my very best not to acknowledge it at all. I really couldn't have been less interested. Unfortunately, as the day went on, I found it to be unavoidable. Even with the surprisingly interesting Olympics going on, it seemed nobody in media was allowed to talk about anything else. I have a very easy system for gaging the relative size of a story. If both Fox News and MSNBC spend a considerable amount of time on the same story, it is a HUGE story. I mean, Fox could barely bring itself to pay attention to Haiti.

So even though I tried very hard not to see it, I wound up being subjected to soundbites and video clips and endless analysis. Some people were so riled up about this, I wonder if any of Tiger's other women were also married to TV reporters. So what if he sounded robotic? When's the last time a very famous person made an apology that wasn't either written for them or drunkenly shouted at a cop at 3AM? Yes, famous people, athletes, politicians, other big money types; they have writers. When they get in trouble, they have people who get paid a ton of money to write statements that sound good and don't get them into anymore trouble. Was this still news to anyone?

My only problem with Tiger is that he didn't take questions. Not because he owes us answers, he doesn't owe me anything. I was hoping, when I first heard he'd be making a statement, maybe if he took a lot of questions, and just kept answering until the press was out of questions, that maybe this would go away, and I wouldn't have to hear about it anymore. Now? It can't possibly go away yet, we don't know anything now that we didn't know last week, except that Tiger is the worst Buddhist in the history of Buddhism.

I have question, but it's not for Tiger. When did we become such babies? Tiger owes an apology to his wife for cheating on her like a dirt bag. He owes an apology to his kids for probably breaking up their family. That's it. He can apologize to his mom if he wants, and Buddha I guess, but even that's pushing it. Why do the rest of us need an apology?

His sponsors? Really? He owes an apology to his sponsors? When Nike signed him, did they sign him because they thought they were getting the world's greatest husband? Is that why people buy every piece of Nike golf crap they can find? Because they wanted to dress like a great husband. This is so stupid. Sponsors who use athletes know what they're getting into. These guys are rich, they're on the road all year, women know who they are and target them. Some of these guys are going to have some extra women. If that's a deal breaker for you, try using some mormons to sell your crappy golf stuff. They might have more than one woman too, but supposedly their god is down with that.

Speaking of other women, I saw this on Fox. Gloria Allred suggested Tiger owes an apology to all the other women he had sex with. Well, I agree that Tiger's description of the many women he had sex with as "temptations" introduced us to a new way of objectifying women. On the other hand, they all knew he was married. Of course they did, don't tell me they didn't know. It's not like he's some anonymous creeper they met in a dimly lit bar at 3AM. He's Tiger f*cking Woods...who they met in a dimly lit bar at 3AM. Most, if not all, of them had sex with him specifically because he's Tiger f*cking Woods. I'll be willing to consider the idea of Tiger owing the other women an apology if, and only if, all of those women first apologize to his wife.

And what about his fans? This is one that really annoyed me. I don't here a lot of marital fidelity based chants for Tiger when he's out on the course. I'm a huge fan of Tiger. I've tried watching golf a couple of times this year. It's awful. I don't know how anyone ever watched golf before Tiger. It's like going to the beach without water or sand. All that's left is the scorching heat and the jellyfish. If he does that to the Masters by not showing up because he's still in therapy or whatever, then he'll owe me an apology. Until then, we're cool.