Too soon for Tiger Woods cover?
Posted by John Paulsen (12/13/2010 @ 2:20 pm)
Check out the cover of the latest issue of ESPN The Magazine:
The news of Woods’ repeated infidelity and subsequent stint in a rehab clinic for sex addition broke less than a year ago and since then Woods has attempted to rehab his image.
But I think the words “NOBODY’S PERFECT” next to a shot of Tiger looking off into the distance with the sun rising behind him like he’s Jesus or something is a little inappropriate. The phrase “nobody’s perfect” is good for a husband to use when he forgets to take the trash out or when he rips a stinky fart but can’t blame the dog because it’s not in the room.
I realize that the cover and story about an athlete’s quest for perfection, but the image of Tiger still brings to mind scandal, and that’s not going to change for a while.
So what do you think? Appropriate or inappropriate?
This year proving that Tiger is human after all
Posted by Anthony Stalter (08/09/2010 @ 10:04 am)
“It’s been a long year … It’s been a long year.”
That was Tiger Woods on Sunday after he finished 18-over par at the Bridgestone Invitational, which was the worst score of his career in a PGA Tour event. In his last 17 rounds, he’s only been able to break 70 twice and has finished at 74 or worse five times, including three times this week.
You think maybe he has something on his mind?
It wasn’t that long ago that we looked at Tiger as this immovable force at the top of the golf world. He seemed almost untouchable both on and off the links and was a permanent fixture atop the leaderboards every time he played. He played threw injuries and even the death of his father and still found ways to win.
But this year, his average finish in his last three outings has been 49th. That’s jaw-dropping considering this is the same 34-year-old man who is already third all-time in PGA Tour wins (71) and who has claimed 14 Major Championships throughout his dazzling career. Instead of finding ways to win, he’s just trying to find ways to make the cut.
Should any of this be surprising though? Less than nine months ago he took his 2009 Cadillac Escalade and ran it into a tree outside of his Florida home. Soon thereafter, the highly embarrassing details of his marital affair were made public and now after going through sex therapy, a nasty divorce and the loss of several sponsorships, he’s trying to play golf again.
Some people can’t even perform off the first tee box when they know onlookers are watching. So it’s hardly a shock to see Tiger crash and burn with everything he’s gone through over the past nine months. Of course, this was all his doing and he’s a living, walking example that karma does in fact exist. But again, it’s hardly a surprise to watch a human being go through a life-changing event like he did and not be able to perform on the job.
The real question is whether or not he’ll ever be the same. One would think that he’ll eventually get back to being the Tiger of old, but there are no guarantees in life. Maybe this is the norm for him now.
Tiger on the road to divorce?
Posted by John Paulsen (05/11/2010 @ 8:56 am)
I guess this still qualifies as news…
TMZ has learned Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren are trying to strike agreements on child custody and division of assets … and then quietly and quickly file divorce papers to end their marriage.
Boy, this came from out of left field. Wait, no it didn’t. Did anyone really think that the couple would put Tiger’s infidelity behind them and stay married?
Bill Simmons on Tiger’s statement
Posted by John Paulsen (02/19/2010 @ 3:39 pm)
I have to hand it to Simmons. He turned this around pretty quickly. It’s a good read…
Say this much about Tiger: People give a crap. I don’t know anyone who didn’t watch this morning’s speech. There isn’t another athlete — not one — who could have made the world stop from 11 to 11:15 like Tiger Woods did.
And with that, we’re done with the positives. I thought it was a borderline train wreck. It amazes me that Tiger learned little to nothing from the past two months. The control freak whose life slipped out of control dipped right back into control-freak mode, reading a prepared speech in front of a hand-selected audience of people, taking no questions, talking in clichés and only occasionally seeming human. Everything about it seemed staged. Everything. When the main camera broke down at the nine-minute mark and Tiger had to be shown from the side, I half-expected to see that he was plugged in to the wall.
Whatever. I was going to leave it alone. After all, that had to have been a humiliating experience for the guy. But listening to talking heads praise that ludicrous speech pushed me over the edge. Someone actually said, “It came from the heart.” It did? Was it C3PO’s heart? I thought it seemed like an automated response from Microsoft’s new “Cheater’s Confession” program.
Let’s look at the facts. Tiger cheats on his wife relentlessly and brazenly. She find out somehow. This leads to him crashing his car in the wee hours of Thanksgiving night. Scandal. Cover-up. More women come out. And more. And more. Tiger disappears like Jimmy Hoffa. Elin stops wearing her ring. Tiger stays hidden. Rumors swirl. By hiding, by not saying anything, Tiger enables every rumor and negative story to gain steam. When he sneaks away to a sex rehab clinic for 45 days, neither Tiger or his representatives acknowledges rumors that he’s there. He emerges with a staged jogging photo op; one day later, three other photos of Tiger hitting golf balls, even seeming jovial in one of them, hit the wires. And then, today’s prepared remarks. That came from the heart. Just as long as you didn’t ask a follow-up question.
Read the rest here.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
AT&T drops Tiger Woods as a sponsor
Posted by Anthony Stalter (12/31/2009 @ 12:09 pm)
AT&T has dropped Tiger Woods like a bad cell phone connection. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
From ESPN.com:
AT&T Inc. said Thursday it would no longer sponsor Tiger Woods, joining Accenture in dropping support for the world’s top golfer, who’s taking a break from the sport to focus on his marriage after his admitted infidelity.
The phone company hasn’t used Woods’ image extensively in advertising, but its logo appeared on his golf bag. That deal had been billed as a “multiyear” agreement when it was signed early in 2009, after Buick ended its endorsement one year early because of its financial woes.
Woods has also been the host of the AT&T National PGA Tour event since it started in 2007. Tour spokesman Ty Votaw said that since Woods is on indefinite leave from professional golf, he will not serve as host for the 2010 event. However, his Tiger Woods Foundation will continue to be the beneficiary of the AT&T National, under a contract that runs through 2014, Votaw said.
The frequency at which sponsors are dropping Woods reminds me of when companies were kicking Michael Vick to the curb once he was indicted on dog-fighting charges. But I wonder whether or not they’ll all come back in a couple of years when he starts winning majors again.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
Tigers’ wife Elin seeking a divorce
Posted by Anthony Stalter (12/17/2009 @ 1:30 pm)
“I’m going to take you for everything you’re worth.”
According to FOX Sports.com, Elin Nordegren is seeking a divorce from golfer Tiger Woods.
Nordegren was recently photographed without her wedding ring.
“It would not appear that Elin Nordegren is going to be standing by her man,” Kate Coyne, senior editor at People Magazine, told “Good Morning America.”
Coyne also claimed Nordegren is “shopping around” for a divorce attorney.
But ABCNews.com’s source said Nordegren is not “rushing to divorce.”
“She’s going to take her sweet time. She wants all the dirty laundry to be out on the table before she signs anything.”
When reached for comment, Tiger had this to say in response:
“I’m going golfing!”
Okay, so he didn’t really say that.
Good for Elin. He publicly humiliated her and has been cheating on her with God knows how many women. She should take him to the cleaners and call it a day; she should have no trouble finding someone else.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
Tiger Woods named AP Athlete of the Decade
Posted by Anthony Stalter (12/16/2009 @ 11:19 am)
Even though his personal life has, uh, taken a hit recently, Tiger Woods was named AP Athlete of the Decade on Wednesday.
From the Huffington Post:
He won 64 times around the world, including 12 majors, and hoisted a trophy on every continent golf is played. He lost only one time with the lead going into the final round. His 56 PGA Tour victories in one incomparable decade were more than anyone except four of golf’s greatest players won in their careers.
Woods received 56 of the 142 votes cast by AP member editors since last month. More than half of the ballots were returned after the Nov. 27 car accident outside his Florida home that set off sensational tales of infidelity.
Lance Armstrong, a cancer survivor who won the Tour de France six times this decade, finished second with 33 votes. He was followed by Roger Federer, who won more Grand Slam singles titles than any other man, with 25 votes.
Not that anyone needed a reminder, but this just goes to show you how dominate Woods has been over the past decade. Sex scandal be damned, Tiger has done legendary things in the world of golf over the past 10 years and it’s nice to see that he got recognition for what he’s done on the course.
It’s also good to see that the media can separate a player’s personal life from his career. In a perfect world, athletes would be role models for our children because they’re always in the public eye. But we don’t live in a perfect world and therefore, the media has to be able to separate what the player does on the field from what he does off it.
That said, how embarrassing for Woods. He receives this great honor, but he can’t even fully enjoy the moment because he’s in a hell of his own making. Every time he looks back on this award, he’ll immediately be reminded of his sex scandal. What a shame.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
Report: Woman hospitalized after taken from Tiger Woods’ home
Posted by Anthony Stalter (12/08/2009 @ 10:37 am)
In a bizarre twist of events, the Boston Herald reports that a woman after being found in Tiger Woods’ home in Windemere, Florida on Tuesday morning.
An Orlando TV station reported EMTs responded to Woods’ home to answer a call of a middle-aged woman in distress. A woman with blond hair was seen on a stretcher, Channel 2 in Orlando and the Associated Press are showing.
The woman was rushed to the hospital from Woods’ Deacon Circle home in Windermere, Fla., according to multiple online sources.
The 911 call came in at 2:36 a.m. and a woman was transported soon after to Health Central Hospital as an advanced life support patient, according to multiple reports.
That is the same hospital where Woods was taken to Nov. 27 – also after a 2:30 a.m. call – after he crashed his 2009 Cadillac Escalade into a hydrant and a tree in a neighbor’s yard cracking open a scandal that now ties him to 10 alleged mistresses – including a porn star.
News is also breaking today that Tiger’s wife has not only moved out but also plunked down more than $2 million to buy a house back in her native Sweden, U.S. and Swedish papers report.
Nordegren, 29, allegedly packed her bags and moved out of her home yesterday in Windermere, RadarOnline is reporting. She also reportedly purchased a house with her twin sister outside of Stockholm, the Swedish news agency HPG reports.
Update: Apparently the unidentified woman was Woods’ mother-in-law, Barbo Holmberg.
From Rotoworld.com:
Yates added that Holmberg was admitted for stomach pain and remains hospitalized for observation. She is in stable condition. Health Central is located in Ocoee, Florida. It is the same hospital at which Woods was treated on Black Friday.
Well, that makes a little more sense.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
Tiger can learn from…Derek Jeter?
Posted by John Paulsen (12/04/2009 @ 3:32 pm)
So says LIVING WITH BALLS…
…one athlete who has banged a countless number of beautiful women continues to have a spotless reputation. This man is DEREK JETER. Do you know why? Because he’s NOT MARRIED.
Any professional athlete, especially an athlete the caliber of a Tiger Woods, should NOT get married—at least not until much later in life. Derek Jeter has slept with Ms. Universe, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Mariah Carey and who knows how many other hot chicks. Only NOW, as he enters the back-end of his career is he finally starting to settle down.
This is a good point that is often overlooked. Society pushes people to get married in their early 20s, and as our childhoods continue to drag out longer and longer, most twentysomethings aren’t mature enough to be in a relationship for the long haul. This goes triple for the professional athlete that is rich and famous and will have women throwing themselves at him as long as he’s playing.
Chris Rock said it best — a man is only as faithful as his options. And Tiger has a lot of options.
He is 33 years-old and should just now be thinking about settling down. Who knows if he’ll ever be capable of being faithful, but he would have had a better shot had he sowed his proverbial oats through his 20s and 30s and got it out of his system.
Whitlock takes aim at Pierce, Reilly and general media covering Tiger incident
Posted by Anthony Stalter (12/03/2009 @ 5:00 pm)
Never shy with his thoughts and opinions, FOX Sports’ columnist Jason Whitlock recently took aim at sports writers Charlie Pierce and Rick Reilly for the way they’ve covered the Tiger Woods scandal.
The article is long, so here are some excerpts on Pierce:
Pierce’s latest offering is an I-told-you-so column. He rages that Tiger’s puritan image is phony and points out that he wrote in great detail in 1997 that Woods was a scandalous, tail-chasing hound.
I don’t know how many rich, famous and good-looking 21-year-old athletes/men Charlie Pierce has interviewed. The ones I’ve met have all been scandalous, tail-chasing hounds. No different from the frat boys I met in college or the corner boys hustling on the block.
Pierce should’ve opened his column by admitting he dislikes Woods and his opinion is skewed by that bias. We’re journalists. We’re supposed to be transparent. Two weeks ago on Deadspin, Pierce trashed Bill Simmons and his New York Times-bestselling book. In that hit piece, Pierce failed to mention that he tried to befriend and mentor Simmons at the beginning of the decade and that in 2002 Simmons told Pierce to go (expletive) himself. That little nugget of information would’ve been very enlightening when reading Pierce’s Deadspin take.
I’m sharing this because it’s important for the public to know that the media act dishonestly all the time. We’re far more phony than Tiger Woods ever could be.
And Reilly:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: General Sports, Golf
Tags: Jason Whitlock, Jason Whitlock opinion Tiger Woods, Jason Whitlock rips Charlie Pierce, Jason Whitlock rips Rick Reilly, Jason Whitlock Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods accident, Tiger Woods affair, Tiger Woods media, Tiger Woods scandal
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