Monday, May 23, 2011

Getting down and dirty with Tiger Woods

A friend (yes, believe it or not, I actually have a couple) told me I've been too nice lately, and not living up to the name of this blog. Well then.

While scrolling around on the satellite dish, I noticed a show titled "Lost Land of the Tiger". This was on a channel called NGW. It only made sense that this had to be about Eldrick "Tiger" Woods. My brilliant mind quickly concluded that NGW probably stood for "no golf wins", "not going well", or maybe even "notoriously greedy womanizer", but I was wrong.

Turned out it was about an elusive creature that goes on the prowl occasionally and has big teeth. Well OK, I suppose comparisons could be drawn there, so let me put it this way -- it was about four-legged tigers with stripes, rather than the two-legged variety with red shirts. Actually, NGW stood for National Geographic Wildlife. Hope that clears it up.

I scanned down and noticed "Hogs Gone Wild". This was on the Discovery channel. I understand the media wants Tiger to be everywhere, but was this about Harley Davidsons, or could it somehow tie into some of those girls in Vegas? Wrong, and wrong again.

It was about pigs. You know, the kind where bacon comes from. Those sort of hogs. I think I was relieved.

Not far below that was the Learning Channel. They offered a show called "Strange Sex". As they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but could it be? I didn't want to know. TMI.

At any rate, poor old Tiger's on the shelf again. It seems his knee hurts, his calf hurts, his foot hurts, everything hurts when he can't win anymore. Probably nothing more so than his pride.

I don't want to hear it. A while back he won the US Open, which typically features extremely difficult courses, on basically one leg. For that, he was a hero. Newspapers and magazines had article after article, and, oh man, the talking heads on TV went into overdrive.

Nowadays, a bunch of very talented young guns are on the scene, and Tiger can't seem to keep up with them. Eldrick had his day when he was the best, but that day has passed.. He got to the point where he "cherry-picked" the tournaments he wanted to participate in for big bucks, maximum exposure, and of course, the chase for Jack Nicklaus' "major" win record. I don't see it happening. He can profess all the injuries he wants, and I suppose that nasty divorce business he went through would be enough to give anybody a case of the "yips", but he's just not good enough anymore. People rise to the top, enjoy the limelight, megabucks, endorsements, and fame, and then others come along and kick them to the curb. Such is the way it goes in professional sports. It ain't personal -- just business.

Don't worry about Eldrick. If he never picks up a club again, chances are he's still got enough dough to buy your whole complex, neighborhood, or subdivision, with some serious change left over. If that doesn't work out, he can always go on the talk show circuit, like all the other has-beens, though I'm not at all sure how well he'd be received by the Swedish audience.

In the end, I suspect he made at least one person happy. For some unexplainable reason, I get this weird feeling that Fuzzy Zoeller's fried chicken tastes a lot better these days. Something to do with the Masters' Championship at Augusta National several years ago, I think.

And Tiger? He's laying low. NGW indeed. Now Getting Wiser.

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