Burning Slight

On Friday, the Bad Tooth went off for his usual five thousand words (and no, not an exact count this time; I just didn't care enough to do the grab and word count) about L'Affaire Le Tigre. I think it said more about the writer than the story, and got back 15 minutes of my life by giving it a miss. A guy wants to ruin his life, it doesn't affect my laundry, I'm not caring that much. So two weeks ago, when this broke, I put Eldrick into an Enemies List for NESW (what? you haven't been reading those? shame on you) and thought I was done with it.

But, well, alas, no.

So the five points that need to be said, I suppose...

1) Perhaps his upbringing wasn't so good after all.

I have one upstanding rule for my daughters; nothing that gets them on television. I think that the more you are on the glass teat, the less in touch with reality you get, and Tiger was smacking golf balls on television before most people can control their bowels. When you tomcat around while having a woman at home with multiple kids, and you're the most famous athlete on the planet... well, it's not exactly showing a strong grasp of reality.

2) He might shut it down for a really long time.

The untold story on Woods has been that he's chased a buck harder than, well, tail. Need a man to go to Dubai and win a payday? He's on it. Looking for someone to shill top tier products? He never says no. The man's put more money in the bank than just about anyone alive in the last decade, and even if he does wind up losing half of it, he's still got enough to avoid the public for the rest of his life.

3) He has no teammates to account to.

If a player in a team sport did this, he'd still be in the locker room, assuming that the coaching staff and owners gave him the green light. In golf? The only man who is really missing him is his caddy, and, of course, the networks and advertisers. I suspect that they wind up being as potent of an influence on Team Tiger as anyone else, but you never know.

4) He just became black again.

Prior to the, um, unpleasantness, OJ Simpson was one of white America's most beloved athlete-actors; from racing through airports to goofing it up with Leslie Nielsen on "Naked Gun" movies. And when everything went down, he became a complete and utter pariah in one part of America, and a disagreeable hero to another. I'm not saying that Woods is going to wind up in jail, but I am saying that his fan base is going to start looking a lot less universal.

5) Golf is in serious trouble.

Start with the bad economy that makes greens fees an easily canceled expense. Add to it the over-expansion of the market from a million new golf courses that were added to housing developments that didn't make it. Sprinkle in the sheer off-putting physical domination of Woods -- who knew that being in shape made you better at this? -- that ended the dream of paunchy middle-aged guys that New Technology would give you that 350 yard drive. And finally, don't miss out on the fact that Woods really was the only player that young people associated with, and he just went Vick on them. Why, exactly, should any new person join the sport, especially when the people who are already there don't particularly want them around?

And, finally, a bonus point... anyone who is obsessed with this really isn't all that interested in sports. Right now, you've got the pre-playoff gmaes in the NFL, an NBA season with a number of compelling storylines, the NHL with resurgent Canadian franchises due to the sea change in currency exchange, college football and college hoop, hot stove MLB moves and more.

So if you are really into this story? It's because you like soap operas. I'm not saying that you are wrong to like them; many people I know love and enjoy them. But they don't write about them on sports blogs and Web sites, because it's just not what that audience wants to see. Or this writer. And that's all I've got to say about that...