By Alex Rendon
As quickly and as far as Tiger Woods has fallen (think Fridge Perry jettisoned out of plane), he can rest easy knowing that there is still one demographic that has his back. Male adolescents tend to support Tiger or at least, we lean to the “he screwed up but it doesn’t make a huge difference to me” side of the coin.
Women aren’t as lenient. That’s an egregious understatement. They pretty much all hate him. Fortunately for Tiger, we all forgave Kobe, and he was accused of sexual assault (actually, I don’t think many people recall that). In fact, I remember one game where Kobe had a hearing in the morning in Colorado, then drilled a game winning shot in L.A. later that night. The crowd went nuts. The moral: forgiving and forgetting is a whole lot easier when your fan base consists of young male adults and your performance doesn’t wane.
Despite the fact that the Tiger story gets weirder everyday, most young adult guys sympathize with Tiger because we’re the ones that revered him so vehemently in the past. He screwed up big time. He pulled an OJ, a Britney and a Kobe all in one (okay, maybe not an OJ but Tiger was a god before all this and his fall from grace might be equally meteoric). But as heinous as his “transgressions” may have been, teen guys find it easiest to let go and heal. Mostly because we don’t care about many things that don’t end in “-ball” or “-mote.” Also, because we’re the ones that screw up the most in society with “transgressions” like that or basically any other kind of transgression. As terrible as his actions were, we guys realize that not much good is going to come from despising the man, and we will continue to watch the PGA tour only when he tees off. At this point, however, we still don’t know when that’s going to be.
Society as a whole is pretty forgiving but it will definitely take women a LONG time not to cringe when Tiger appears on the cover of S.I. or Golf Digest. In all honesty, that may never happen. What Tiger has to do to win his moderate supporters back is to settle his thing with his wife, Elin, address the public when he feels ready to and then hit the links. He can’t worry about his detractors yet. It was easy to dislike him in the past with his stern demeanor and aloofness toward his fans. All they needed was one little thing to completely trash him. Fortunately for Tiger, golf is an older man’s game and he’s got plenty of time.
I’m not necessarily a Tiger apologist. He showed a lack of judgment that is almost unparalleled from a man as high up on a pedestal. He’s obviously been a terrible husband and it’s okay to dislike him for that, but once he starts playing again, I, like many other adolescent male golf fans, will empathize with him. His job is to play golf and he does it better than any other person on Earth. So many other facets of his character need work and he’s aware of that. He knows his father would be supremely disappointed in him. He knows his public image has been dealt a mortal blow. He knows all the right things he has to say or do. As for teenage male golf fans and any other fans of Tiger, we know what we have to do. Watch him play and try to forgive.
sweet