This was written in April. A delayed upload. The message remains valid still
This weekend saw me being a part of the latest mania to hit television – The Return of the Tiger. Tiger Woods returned to Augusta Masters after 5 months off the field. Could he do it, couldn’t he? In the end it was a lot of the same. Tiger came and did what would have been expected of him 5 months back. He was in contention right till the last day only to have an average last round. 5 months back it would have been allright. What was special this time was the focus on Tiger. And it was here that it got really weird….
Ever since the Tiger Woods saga unravelled itself, Tiger has been expected to be apologetic about himself. Makes sense if its to his family (and probably even his mistresses) but on the field?? At the start of the tournament the chief organiser of the tournament had a swipe at Tiger with his reprimands for what essentially was Tiger’s private life. Now what has golf and Augusta masters have to do with it? Absolutely nothing.
Why are sportsmen expected to behave like entertainers. The core reason for a player to be on the field is his desire to win the game before everybody else and to do it in a sportsmanlike fashion. Tiger swears at the ball, does not smile at the patrons, throws his club around but so what… he is the best golfer of his generation because he wins games and tournaments and he does those at a rate that nobody thought was possible before. So why is Tiger now changing himself to be a “better person” muttering his thank yous and cap doffing when he should be zoning into his next target.
As spectators, we have come to a point where we want our heroes to be spotless in everything. We attach too much of importance to them, we want our children to be like them and when they start showing errant behaviour, we get angry at them and promptly and publicly chastise them.
Tiger Woods – No. 1 golfer in the world is a person, a package which includes personality traits and it is these traits that makes him successful. So I think its time to let him be and as the old Accenture line went – “Go on .. Be a Tiger”
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