Tiger Woods

During the last couple weeks, you couldn’t turn to a major news network without hearing the latest Tiger Woods scandal gossip. His name was plastered all over the national news, entertainment news, sports news, and there even was a mildly entertaining segment on Saturday Night Live with Blake Lively (apologies to those outside the US but NBC is pretty determined to keep the skit and all SNL content off of YouTube). Now that he’s decided to take an indefinite leave from the world of golf to attend to his family woes, the sponsors are starting to distance themselves from him.

Gillette was the first to step up to the plate. They chose to begin phasing him out of their commercials, which means you will probably never see Tiger’s likeness alongside Federer and Henry ever again. What a shame. Then today, Accenture drops Tiger completely, citing the “circumstances of the last two weeks”.

What really gets me about this whole situation is not that Tiger allegedly cheated on his wife or that there was a series of bizarre occurrences going on in his neighbourhood (the car crash and golf clubs, etc.) which kick started this whole media blitz, but that once again celebrities are being elevated to a status where they are held to higher moral and ethical standard than the rest of us.

If Woods had actually cheated, then he is just one of 30 to 60% of all married Americans that will engage in infidelity at some point in their marriage. If he gets divorced because of this, then his marriage will be just one of the 50% of all marriages that end in divorce.

I’m not condoning his actions if they happened as reported, but infidelity is a personal matter that should be dealt with away from the prying eyes of the public. I commend Woods for not making an appearance except through statements on his website. There is already a big enough media circus revolving around this topic; no one needs to see another sideshow like the one Kobe put on in front of the cameras. Undoubtedly though, that sideshow will happen the next time Woods makes a public appearance, whether he wants to address it or not.

Should we care about Tiger’s alleged extramarital affair(s)? The obvious answer is we shouldn’t. The only news of Tiger that should be reported is how he does when he plays golf. After all, that is what he should be to us, just a golfer. And if a young golfer wants to use him as a role model, his infidelity has nothing to do with how he plays golf, unless it actually does, but that’s an entirely different discussion to be had.

Ultimately, this is a personal issue that Woods has to deal with between his wife and himself. As a society, we are far too wrapped up in idolizing sports stars, actors and actresses, politicians, or frankly, anyone in a position of power. And we do hold politicians to a higher moral code, even though it’s often not actually upheld.

As long as they perform their job and they don’t break the law (because every member of society is held up to the same criminal laws), they can do whatever they want in their spare time as far as I am concerned. Last time I checked (about a week ago, in fact), adultery – though a sin according to the ten commandments – is not a crime by most state / national laws. New York is a quirky exception where adultery is a class B misdemeanor and is punishable by up to 90 days in jail or a $500 fine.

Dave Hodge of The Reporters on TSN probably summed it up best:

The PGA tour sells [the idea] around the 18th green the wife and children. The PGA tour would frown if hookers, strippers, and cocktail waitresses came running in all directions to congratulate the winner.

As someone who doesn’t watch a lot of golf, the latter scenario he described would cause me to tune into golf’s biggest championships more often.