Two sources in the golf community told The New York Post that Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary to Pres. George W. Bush and the man who was brought in to help repair the steroid-shattered image of Mark McGwire, has been huddling with Woods, plotting a strategy for his return to golf — at the Arnold Palmer Invitational starting March 25 at Bay Hill in Orlando.
“They were in his living room this week going over a strategy for how to handle Bay Hill in two weeks,” one source said.
The other source told The Post, “I would be shocked if he didn’t play the Arnold Palmer .”
Palmer himself reportedly has told some close confidants that Woods is definitely playing Bay Hill. Quietly, the people running the tournament are preparing for a larger-than-usual media crush.
Last week I made a prediction that Tiger would make his return at the Masters on April 8th, or play in whatever tournament occurs the week before the Masters. Bay Hill is the last tournament before the Masters.
It makes sense that Woods would want to knock the rust off his game before he played in a major, so I wouldn’t doubt it if this report were true and his return is at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It’ll be interesting to see how his team will choose to handle the media when he’s not out on the course.
More than a few people took exception to Bill Simmons’ decision to compare Tiger Woods’ upcoming comeback to that of Muhammad Ali, and Olbermann is one of them. The two are having a Twitter/blog war.
Bill Simmons wrote a long column that compares Tiger’s eventual comeback to those of some of sport’s other iconic athletes. One point jumped out at me…
At gunpoint, if I could wager on any conceivable scenario, I would wager on Tiger coming back in severe Eff You Mode, like a seething MJ in Game 1 of the 1992 Finals. The greatest ones have a way of channeling negativity and fueling it toward whatever makes them great. Jordan made a habit of it. So did Ali. But they were also larger-than-life personalities, whereas Tiger was always just someone who was freakishly good at golf and that’s it.
I can see Tiger coming back with a vengeance, but basketball (and boxing, for that matter) is unlike golf in that pure effort and energy can overcome one’s opponent. Typically, in basketball, an athletically inferior team can be victorious if they outhustle its opponent. Defense, rebounding, loose balls — success in these areas depends largely on a team’s effort. So if MJ’s shot wasn’t falling, he could take his “Eff You Mode” and apply it elsewhere and dominate the game. And when the best athlete on the court is playing harder than anyone else, good things will happen.
I don’t think Tiger can do that in golf. Effort is only going to matter when he’s practicing, and while this is vitally important to a successful comeback, effort is not going to matter much when it comes time to play a tournament. Golf is a game of millimeters, and passion isn’t going to help much when titles are on the line. If channeled, this passion and determination can help in the form of focus, but there is also the chance that Tiger becomes too focused and it pushes him off the rails.
Whatever happens, it’s going to be interesting to watch.
The reasons for the boycott were two-fold. First, the insistence by Woods and his handlers to limit media access to a pool of reporters. Second, Woods’s decision not to field any questions. But there were also deeper feelings in play, and complicated ones, too. This is an association filled with members who had covered Woods, by almost all counts, fairly and with respect, chronicling his golfing feats even as he bristled at times at his media obligations.
The Woods story has gone everywhere and nowhere in the last three months, and it is impossible to know how the story will end. Eventually, the GWAA will be back behind the scenes, where it has been for much of its 64 years of existence, as an organization whose original goals included “an improvement in press facilities” and “interviews with players.”
That’s all the GWAA wanted Friday, an interview with Tiger Woods. He won’t give it. So the GWAA won’t be there.
I’ve never been to a golf event as a media member, so I don’t know what it’s like to try and track Tiger down to do an interview. But I can only imagine how much of a pain he could be when it comes to being accessible to the media so I’m all for the boycott. If he was crass and cold to a group that helped make him one of the most popular athletes in the U.S., then he deserves to be shunned when he embarrasses himself and then wants to establish the rules for making a public appearance.
Don’t get me wrong – I’ve stated several times on this site that Tiger doesn’t owe the media or us anything. But I see the GWAA’s point here. They’ve played by his rules for a long time and even when he’s entrenched in an embarrassing scandal, he still wants everything to be on his terms. I don’t blame the GWAA for thinking, “You don’t control the situation any more, Tiger.”
Of course, as soon as he takes his first steps back into golf, the media will be there just as they always have. He’s arguably the most recognizable athlete in America and this little boycott by the GWAA won’t go any further than today. But I like the fact that at least a small media contingent told him to shove it, much like I’m sure he’s done to them over the years.
Tiger Woods is deeply sorry for the “selfish behavior” he engaged in that brought upon a shocking sex scandal that has consumed his life since Thanksgiving. He also has no idea when he’ll return to golf, although he’s not ruling out that it’ll be sometime this year.
In his first public appearance in nearly three months, Woods addressed a small media contingent on Friday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida and said he was deeply sorry for his behavior. He spoke for nearly 15 minutes and admitted that, “I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to” and how, “I felt entitled.” He also said that he was going back to rehab next week and therefore there was no timetable for his return to golf.
You could tell that Woods was genuine in his apology and he wasn’t just skating through a forced statement. I give him credit for speaking publicly because quite frankly, he doesn’t owe us anything even though some people feel otherwise. This is a private matter and just because he sells himself through endorsements, doesn’t mean we’re entitled to what he does behind closed doors. Did he screw up? Yeah, he did. But he’s obviously paying for it and he’s trying to take the steps necessary to ensure that he doesn’t make these mistakes again.
I also think it’s smart that he didn’t announce when he’d return to the links. He’s heading back to rehab next week and who knows how long that will take. It doesn’t make sense for him to rush through rehab and return to golf before he’s received help for dealing with the issues that got him into this situation in the first place. He should return when it’s the right time, whenever that may be.
There were no new or shocking revelations today. Anyone who thought that he would stand in front of a podium and either admit to or refute the allegations that have been made public is delusional. True, many people thought he would announce his return to golf but he didn’t, so let’s move on for the time being.
Posted by Christopher Glotfelty (02/15/2010 @ 3:33 pm)
Still think Tiger Woods is ready to rejoin the PGA Tour anytime soon? Joslyn James, one of the two porn stars included in Tiger’s public harem, recently told “Inside Edition” that she became pregnant two times during her relationship with the disgraced golfer. According to James, one pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and the other in an abortion.
From the New York Daily News:
James never told Woods about the pregnancies, which occurred at the same times the golfer’s wife, Elin, was pregnant with their two kids.
“The first one was when [Elin] was pregnant with Sam,” James said, referring to Woods’ 2-year-old daughter.
James said she carried on a steamy three-year affair with the golfer, and they never used protection.
“It was never talked about. It was never protected,” she said.
The second time she got pregnant, James said she quietly had an abortion.
“Well, Elin was pregnant with Charlie at that time,” she said. “I just didn’t want to ruin anything.”
“I feel bad for [Elin],” she added. “She didn’t deserve this and she didn’t deserve being humiliated.”
According to a report by FOX Sports.com, Tiger Woods paid hush money to two women he had a videotaped threesome with.
The fidelity-challenged superstar golfer was in bed with the pair in Phoenix three years back when he noticed one of them taking pictures or videotaping him with the other girl, the newspaper said, citing a source familiar the situation.
“”Tiger goes ballistic. He starts chasing the girl around. She runs out the door. He runs out after her. I don’t know how much clothing either of them is wearing, but Tiger finally catches up with her and grabs her cell phone or camera or whatever it was that had the evidence,” the source said.
Recognizing the danger the situation posed to Woods’ hundreds of millions of dollars in endorsement money, his handlers decided to make regular payments to the women to keep them quiet, the Daily News said.
It’s not known what happened to the recording.
Yikes. I wouldn’t be shocked if that sex tape (or some other sex tape for that matter) surfaced at some point. One thing is for sure, if you’re a celebrity and you’re doing something wrong, you will get caught. And not only that, everything you did in that time span will come to light because once the media gets digging, they won’t stop until they’ve found something.
“Tiger Woods’ problems come from him being married. The end,” Mayer said to the U.K.’s The Independent newspaper. “If Tiger Woods was single and he texted a girl and said ‘I wanna wear your ass like a hat’, why would that ever hit the news?”
“I write a lot of dirty text messages to girls, and you’ve never seen any of them,” said Mayer, whose famous past girlfriends include Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Simpson and Minka Kellly.
“Why? Because if a girl brought a dirty text message from me to the newspapers, they’d say ‘I don’t have an angle here. Someone wants to wear your ass like a hat? Big deal. He’s 32 years old. He’s a single guy. If John Mayer has a wife and sends dirty texts, then we got a story,” he explained.
First of all, I’d like to nominate Mayer’s “I wanna wear your ass like a hat” line as quote of the year. I know it’s only February, but I see that quote having staying power throughout 2010.
Secondly, I’m officially setting the over/under on total times Mayer has said that to a girl at 21.5. And this might be one of those times when you don’t over think it and you just go with the “over.”
Lastly, I couldn’t agree more with Mayer, although I wouldn’t have used the same terms as he did. How many times do sports fans say around the water cooler that Player X shouldn’t have gotten married during his playing days? That he should bang as many broads as he wants and then go get married when his career is over? I know I’ve said it a dozen times about athletes and that’s all Mayer is essentially saying himself. Woods’ is “problem” is that he was married and he was doing horrible things behind his wife’s back. That’s the real issue here – he’s a womanizer that was cheating on his wife.
And Mayer’s point about the media is right on, too. The media does look for angles in stories and love it when someone screws up. Tiger screwed up and the media was all over it. If Mayer did the same thing, it might be a story but it wouldn’t have staying power. (At least not like that fantastic quote of his above.)
