Tiger can blame media, but mistakes were his alone
It's amazing the stuff that's being peddled on TigerWoods.com.
For instance, for $85 I can get a replica of the red polo shirt that Woods wore on the Sunday of this year's PGA championship. For only $70, however, I can get a replica of the blue polo he wore during Thursday's round. And if I really want to save some money this year, I can go to the holiday outlet page where a replica of Woods' AT&T National Trophy has been discounted from $50 to $25.
>>SEE the Tiger Woods crash report (.pdf)
Here's what I can't buy on TigerWoods.com: A replica of the pitching wedge that his wife allegedly used to bash out the back window of his SUV on Friday. Nor can I buy the logic in his long-awaited public apology that you can find under the vaguely euphemistic heading "Comment on Current Events."
After issuing a brief apology to his family and fans for his "transgressions," Woods devotes the majority of the statement teeing off on the media, whom he believes have unfairly hounded him "to expose the intimate details of their personal lives."
I believe that everyone deserves a personal life, and, like everyone, there are a few things in mine that I would prefer not to have plastered all over the tabloids.
That said, I am not Tiger Woods.
I am not selling a replica of the dress I wore while writing Tuesday night's Knicks story on my personal web page. Nor have I made millions of dollars by projecting a pristine, squeaky-clean image.
>>New Tiger Woods crash photos, and photos of women linked to Woods
What Tiger Woods doesn't seem to understand - and more disconcertingly doesn't seem to have public relations people who are savvy enough to make him understand - is that it's not just the fact that he is such an incredible golfer that has made him the richest athlete in America. It is his striving for perfection on and off the golf course that has made thousands of women go to his web page and buy an $80 polo shirt for their husband for Christmas.
It's the fact that he seems like a good guy - a nice family man with a beautiful ex-model wife whom he adores - that has advertisers paying millions to get him to endorse everything from cars to financial services to shaving products. (Seriously, how many of you married guys out there actually buy your own shaving products?)
From a distance, it seemed as though Woods had a picture-perfect life. He was young, rich, successful and had a happy family life. Now, we find out that the reality isn't quite as pretty as the image we have been sold.
Never mind the fact that reality rarely is as pretty and simple as it appears. Millions of fans bought into this image, so it's hard to see how Woods can fault them for wanting to find out the truth.
My feeling is Woods could have avoided a lot of this heartache if he had gone the David Letterman route.
While Letterman didn't have the same pristine image, he had made so much money raking over the transgressions of others that his reality was as equally shocking as Woods'. Yet, the way Letterman handled it, with a quick public apology where he confessed everything without pointing fingers at anyone else, including the media, will be studied in crisis management classes for years to come.
Somehow, Letterman's apology made fans identify with him, like he was a human who had made mistakes like all of us have. Woods' apology - and the fact that it was such a long time coming and that he repeatedly refused to meet with local police - made him seem just plain arrogant.
I think I'm going to pass on the $85 polo this year.
>>READ the full text of Tiger Woods' statement
>>New Tiger Woods crash photos, and photos of women linked to Woods
