SPEAKING OF REMORSE, TRUE REPENTANCE BRINGS CHANGED HEARTS AND LIVES, even if it's incremental, over time. Below, Andrea Peyser talks about Tiger Woods lack of true remorse and how it affected his game, his popularity, his health and his chances of ever being anything but a second rate human being today. Take it away Andrea, I couldn't agree more:
Americans love a good comeback story the way we love a warm cuddle in the morning and a stiff belt of Scotch at night.
Not long ago, Robert Downey Jr. was a much-arrested, drugged-up
Hollywood washout. But the 51-year-old now-clean and sober star of
“Captain America: Civil War” replaced his passion for heroin, cocaine
and marijuana with a healthy hankering for money — and was named the
world’s highest-paid actor each of the last three years by Forbes
magazine.
The Boston Red Sox sank into baseball loserdom after trading Babe
Ruth to the New York Yankees, suffering “The Curse of the Bambino” for
86 years, starting after the 1918 season. The World Series drought
finally lifted when the Sox defeated the despised (by the team and me)
Yanks in the 2004 American League Championship Series, and then won the
Fall Classic that year and twice more.
Even the nations of Japan and Germany, two of the United States’ Axis
archenemies during World War II, have come back as our country’s
wealthy allies and pals.
The latest bid for a comeback appears to be planned not by a
politician or junkie — in the ordinary sense of the word — but by the
sexually insatiable golfer Tiger Woods.
He spent the last few years in a moral timeout room following his
admitted extramarital affairs, if one considers having sex with scores
of blond, brunette and redheaded chippies, some while standing up,
“affairs.”
Elin NordegrenPhoto: Splash News
This drove his then-wife Elin Nordegren,
armed with a 9 iron, on a legendary 2009 chase of the rotter from their
Florida mansion. Tiger lost lucrative endorsement deals and got
divorced. He then entered into a reputation-cleansing romantic
relationship with Olympic champion alpine skier Lindsey Vonn, 31 — which unraveled amid rumors that Tiger couldn’t keep his pants zipped for any one woman, even America’s sweetheart. Perhaps not coincidentally, his golf game has plunged into the cellar.
Tiger is now 40 years old. He has undergone two back surgeries and a
follow-up procedure. The world’s former No. 1-ranked golfer has fallen
to a dismal 508th place as of last week.
Isn’t it time that we tried, if not to forgive, then to forget
Tiger’s sliming of his fans, his sponsors, his friends and his family?
Not on your furry tail!
Another famous cheater, former President Bill Clinton, nearly
purified his image by at least behaving as if he were sorry. But Tiger
is too egotistical for that.
Recently, I watched a video compilation of Tiger’s lowlights at play —
he was an F-bomb-spewing, golf-club-hurling, walking temper tantrum.
He’s a rotten role model for kids and a disgrace to grown men.
Tiger has booked accommodations for the Memorial Tournament in Ohio next month, Reuters reported, presumably in preparation for playing. Golf! Get your mind out of the sand trap. Tiger’s camp is mum on his plans.
He hasn’t appeared in a tourney since August. But word is that he’ll
likely stage a post-surgery comeback, and may compete next month in the
prestigious US Open, for which he has registered but is not required to
play. Stuff it.
We don’t need Tiger 2.0.
He’s been replaced in the hearts and minds of links lovers by humble
22-year-old golfer Jordan Spieth, whose biggest breach of etiquette was
muttering, “Dang it!’’ after flubbing a tee shot during the 2015
Master’s Tournament, which he won.
Tiger doesn’t seem to realize that when one wins the goodies that
come with fame — big bucks, public adulation, groupies — he must at
least try to live by ordinary rules of decency. And when he’s caught
behaving badly, he must show remorse. Tiger is one sorry human, but he
regrets nothing.
Tiger Woods may play golf again. I, for one, will not be watching.
And neither will I. I'll take Jason Spieth any day.
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