Gene Wojciechowski Has Trust Issues and Bill Plaschke Has Timing Issues

Recently, both Bill Plaschke and Gene Wojciechowski have written articles about the new fall-back option for sportswriters who don't have anything else to talk about. They write about Tiger Woods and his return to golf at the Masters. I am not sure if anyone has heard anything about this, but apparently Tiger Woods is making his non-triumphant return to competitive golf at the Masters. You may have missed this recently and just been confused as to why Rick Reilly was showing his face on television and actually being able to give an opinion. It's because he is an amateur Tiger Woods psychologist of course, plus ESPN has to get their money's worth out of Reilly at some point, and commenting on Tiger Woods seems to be the best way to do that.

Bill Plaschke has serious issues with where Tiger Woods has decided to return to the PGA Tour. He thinks Tiger should just ease back into golf at a different tournament, even though it is completely impossible for Tiger to ease into anything related to golf at this point. Bill still believes Tiger could ease his way back into golf and he says it in his own 1-2 sentence paragraph way.

Here's hoping it will be a more humble, humane Tiger Woods who takes his first official golf swings after spending five months mired in a sex scandal.

Here's to who gives a shit about a humble Tiger. I want to watch him hit a golf ball far and do fist pumps in excitement.

But, let's face it, only someone still bathed in delusions of grandeur would do so in a church.

Which is why he is doing it at a golf tournament. You wouldn't think a column that has 200 total words, 42 sentences and 39 paragraphs would need filler...apparently you would be wrong.

Good for him. But why Augusta?

Other than he loves playing in the tournament, it provides limited media access, and he is hoping the start of the baseball season and the end of the college basketball season overshadows his return? Also, other than it is a tournament which features a gallery that will probably not be heckling him too often? Other than those reasons, there is no reason to pick Augusta.

The Masters tournament is one of the last sports events that is bigger than any of the athletes who compete there. Woods' comeback will completely swallow it.

Unless you want to count the World Cup, the Super Bowl, the NCAA tournament, the Summer/Winter Olympics and various other sporting events that I can't think of right now, this is a true statement. More importantly, I would love to know where have some of the sports events that were bigger than the athletes gone? Did they disappear, and if so, I would love to know which sports events these were?

Forget the green jacket. The only article of clothing that will concern anyone will be something worn by Tiger Woods' wife Elin, if she attends.

She won't attend and it really doesn't matter. I never looked for her anyway and I bet 95% of the audience didn't give a shit if she was there 5 years ago and won't care if she is there for this tournament.

Forget Amen Corner. The most watched hole will be the one played by Woods, who will spend four days as the most witnessed landmark in Masters history.

As opposed to every other Masters when no one was paying attention to Tiger?

Bill Plaschke is completely ignoring the fact every hole Tiger Woods plays is the most watched hole and viewers watch tournaments on television and attend tournaments merely because Tiger will be present. So Tiger being the most watched golfer should have no bearing on whether the Master's was the correct place to start his PGA year. It was going to happen this way regardless of any outside circumstances because Woods is the most popular golfer in the world.

It is obvious why Woods chose this venue for his return. Remember his recent speech in front of friends and family, his completely controlled return to the public eye?

The following was the fourth paragraph and 4th sentence of this column:

Good for him. But why Augusta?

Bill has either answered his own question or he just can't remember what he has written a few paragraphs before.

It is obvious why Woods chose this venue for his return.

If it is obvious, then why does Bill Plaschke ask himself why Tiger chose Augusta?

Inside the Augusta gates, every move is regulated, every action monitored, every emotion corralled.

Is there any other golf tournament where spectators are expressly forbidden to ‘'run?'' It is surely the only golf tournament where running will result in the loss of your tickets.

It is the only sporting event where the number of credentialed media is kept at a low level and rarely changed. It is also the only golf event where the media is not allowed inside the ropes, allowing the golfers a sort of peace that they will not find anywhere else.

So now that Bill Plaschke has answered his own question, why would Tiger Woods not choose Augusta as the place of his return? As contradictory as this sounds, it is probably one of the lowest profile and least disrupting places on the PGA Tour to return to competitive golf for Woods.

Can we imagine the amount of press and disruption that would occur if Tiger had come back at the Shell Houston Open the week before the Masters or the Verizon Heritage the week after the Masters? Those tournaments aren't equipped to handle the amount of media coverage Tiger's return would have caused. There's no way it wouldn't have been a clusterfuck. Meanwhile, Augusta is well-equipped to handle this type of media pressure.

For Woods, this will be a sort of halfway house from heaven. But for the Masters, it could be four days — or maybe just two days? — of hell.

I am sure the Masters really hates the increased interest and focus on the tournament and CBS hates the ratings it will give them. How terrible! Everyone is interested in our tournament, what shall we ever do?

Every Woods news conference will be filled with the sort of talk that will stage the event as something other than a golf tournament.

This would have happened anywhere Tiger Woods chooses to make his comeback. This isn't a problem exclusive to the Masters.

His rounds will be taut with the expectation of distraction from a crowd that is famous for its forced etiquette. Yes, everyone is polite, but this is the Bible Belt, and they do serve beer, and who knows when this will become the U.S. Open in Bethpage?

I really have no idea what the Bible Belt and serving beer has to do with the crowd getting unruly. I realize Bill Plaschke gets most of his ideas about the South from movies like "Sweet Home Alabama" where everyone lives in a trailer, does Civil War re-enactments, has a dog, and is very kind but looks down on sinners...but outside of this Hollywood stereotype I don't think the moral police are going to be in the gallery looking down on Tiger Woods.

I hate to ruin his view of the South, but I don't expect there to be massive amounts of Tiger taunting going on from the gallery because they don't agree with his moral decisions. If I had to make a list of the most annoying Southern stereotypes, near the top of the list is that everyone in the South goes to church and passes judgment on others. I digress...

One can argue that Woods' presence would dominate any golf tournament. But it's not quite the same at the Masters.

One would also be exactly right if one made this argument.

While he's a four-time champion here, he has always been treated the same as everyone else here, just another stitch in golf's most glorious quilt.

Which is why they re-designed the course so that it would be more difficult for him to play well and give the other competitors a chance to beat Tiger. Other than re-designing the course for him, they treat Tiger the same as other golfers.

No Masters winner will ever be as forgotten as the guy who wins this year —and no, Woods is not going to win it. Every bit of fragrant air will be sucked up by the world's most famous fallen athlete looking for a soft landing.

Who won the Masters two years ago? I would bet 4 out of 10 people couldn't tell me. I had to actually look it up. My point is that Masters winners are forgotten for various reasons, like sometimes no one has heard of the winner prior to his Masters victory and also because time has a way of taking our memory away. Regardless, Masters winners will be forgotten and this year's winner would be no different if Tiger was in the tournament or not.

Hell, more people may remember who won this Masters because they watched since Tiger was playing in it.

Woods could have avoided turning Augusta into a circus by sending in the clowns a couple of weeks earlier. He could have started his comeback at next week's Arnold Palmer Invitational, which he has won the last two years and six times overall.

This event could probably not handle the media crush that would ascend on the tournament and this tournament would be turned on it's head. Plus, then Bill Plaschke would write an article about how it was wrong for Tiger to return to golf at a tournament named for the God-like Arnold Palmer. Bill would probably also accuse Tiger of smearing Palmer's name by coming back at his tournament.

I know he is filthy cheater (like 80% of athletes), but if Tiger wants to play at the Masters and they don't mind him playing...let him play.

It would have been nuts, but then it would have been over, and he could have walked into Augusta National in the quiet shadows of the pines and dogwoods like everyone else.

Bill Plaschke is living in a fantasy land if he thinks Tiger Woods could walk the grounds of Augusta National at any point in the past or future like everyone else. He was always, and will always be, the main draw. The same questions asked of him at the clusterfuck that would be the Arnold Palmer Invitational would be asked at Augusta.

Plaschke does realize Tiger Woods was the most popular golfer before this whole cheating incident doesn't he?

Then again, maybe the Augusta National nobles deserve this. After all these years of excluding women, their club is about to be stolen by a guy running from them.

Yes, maybe the Masters deserves the indignity of Tiger Woods making this the most-watched and relevant golf tournament of this year. How will they ever survive?

-Gene Wojciechowski just can't trust Tiger Woods anymore and he is greatly broken up over this fact.

For years, Tiger Woods deceived himself, his wife, his mother, his in-laws, his children, his friends, his sponsors, his peers, his entourage, his fans, the media and even his mistresses. So while I'd love to jump headfirst into the new Tiger Pond of Trust, it's going to take more than Monday's 34-minute news conference to make me a full believer.

Apparently this is Gene's first head-on collision with the fact people, lie, and cheat to serve their own measures. Really if he was jaded and negative about the world he probably wouldn't be so hurt by this.

I want to believe, I really do. It's in our DNA to see someone's better angels, to take the leap of faith from distrust to trust.

Actually, it is in the media's DNA to never believe someone even when they are claiming to be telling the truth. An apology is never good enough because it will either sound too rehearsed or not sincere enough.

There were 48 questions. But there weren't 48 answers. At times, New Tiger reverted to Old Tiger -- that is, he laid up on the truth.

I always find it hilarious the media somehow believes that Tiger Woods owes me and the rest of the world an apology or the truth. It is as if there is some warped sense that because we cheered for him in sports, he has done us wrong personally by transgressions in his personal life and our lives are forever changed. If true, this would be pathetic, but fortunately it is not true at all.

He hit a 3-iron when he could have, should have, hit driver with his explanations and words.

This is very simple. I just don't get what else Tiger has to say. Does he have to paint the world a fucking picture of what happened, does he need to bust out with a PowerPoint presentation and outline his transgressions, and why does he have to tell the world everything? Why can't those asking the questions just use their imagination on what happened on that November night and draw their own conclusions based on what Tiger has said previously? More importantly, why the hell should I care about the truth? This is a personal matter.

I want to watch Tiger Woods hit the golf ball and that's not shallow, that's his job. He is a fallible human being and any attempt to paint him in a different light is a fantasy. I treat Tiger Woods shallowly. I want to watch him hit a golf ball, fist pump and generally play golf well because this entertains me. I want to use him for this. Good for him if he works his personal stuff out, but the truth only distracts from the fact I want to be entertained and enjoy watching him play golf. All the other stuff can go away.

Monday is the day we discovered that Woods tore his right Achilles late in 2008. It's the day he admitted he took the painkiller Vicodin and the sleep aid Ambien. It's the day he denied ever taking human growth hormone or performance enhancing drugs.

See, this is the type of boring stuff I personally don't care about when discussing Tiger Woods. For me, the truth is boring and not relevant to my use for Tiger Woods...which is to be able to watch him play golf.

Exactly. Woods has a long and creepy history of deception. He didn't live a secret life; he lived a dozen of them. It took 16 months before we found out about the torn Achilles.

Why is the torn Achilles a big deal at all and why do we need to know the truth about that? Football players have injuries all the time they don't reveal publicly for competitive reasons, why should golfers be any different? Is it really that important he doesn't reveal he has a torn Achilles? Is there a golfing injury rule that I don't know about, where golfers are required to reveal their injuries?

My point is that Gene cares about Tiger telling the truth about shit that isn't even relevant to the Masters, Tiger cheating, or anything else. How can a torn Achilles in late 2008 matter right now? As far as showing a pattern of lying, this is weak evidence, because athletes cover up the true nature of injuries all the time.

It took weeks before we found out that federal investigators have contacted his agent about Woods' medical relationship with Galea. It took years and years before we found about the mistresses.

Are we his parents? Is the fan's role to condone or not condone an athlete's actions? I don't think so. Gene is acting like a 10 year old boy who has been let down by his favorite baseball player. I feel like he wants to curl up in bed and cry until dinnertime.

Isn't it fair to wonder what else Woods hasn't mentioned from his past?

Sure, but it is not relevant. What if we find out Tiger isn't deeply involved with making the video game that has his name on it? Will this change my life forever? Should I really give a shit? Am I asking too many closed-ended questions?

I don't need or want details of his affairs, or an Elin/marriage update.

Apparently you do require this.

I needed better than, "I did everything to the letter of the law," when asked why he didn't speak with Florida law enforcement investigators last December.

Maybe he is still hiding something. Most likely it doesn't matter.

And I definitely needed better than Woods saying he's learned the importance of perspective after the death of his father, the birth of his children and now the implosion of his personal life and carefully crafted public image.

Huh? If anything, Woods has shown an inability to learn from his mistakes. You can't rent perspective. Either you buy into it or you don't.

It seems like Gene is misunderstanding what Tiger was saying. He was saying after ALL of those events, he has learned perspective. He is not saying he learned new perspective after each single event.

Yes, in the past he has not learned from his mistakes, but this is also the first time he has been called on those mistakes, so this is the first time he has had to learn from them. So Tiger was saying after all of those events, he has now learned perspective and we can't really question that statement because he hasn't slipped up again.

Peace and Woods haven't been in the same tee box for who knows how long. He says rehab has made a difference, but, sigh, he wouldn't even say what kind of rehab program he completed.

"That's personal, thank you," he said.

Not to keep repeating myself, but why does it matter what rehab he went to? This is what I don't like about where sports journalism is going. I don't think journalists should turn a blind eye to what Tiger Woods does or this scandal, but there comes a time when the line needs to be drawn. He won't reveal what rehab he went to, it doesn't really matter in the long run, so let's all move on.

Now the fact Tiger Woods won't reveal the exact nature of the rehab program isn't a private matter, but a reason we can't trust him. Whereas in the past I think we could all move on past the exact nature of the rehab program, it can't happen during this point in time. Journalists feel like they have to know the full story or else they don't know any of the story. They don't have to turn a blind eye, but need to say, "okay he is not telling us the answer to this question, is it really important to get the answer?" I think this is the point where sports journalism becomes sports tabloid journalism.

People want to believe in Woods. That much was evident as he played his Monday morning practice round. The patrons were polite, supportive, but I thought a little more subdued than usual.

Right, because usually the Masters gallery is rowdy and excessively loud. The definition of a golf gallery is usually, "polite, supportive, and subdued." Especially for a practice round.

Honesty -- what a concept. Woods has gone from baby steps to fuller steps, but I'm still not prepared to take that full Tiger plunge. Let's see if he actually acts differently on and off the course.

If he plans on cheating again, he will be much more careful this time. So I don't think we are going to get a great glimpse at him acting differently off the course. Think about it, he was cheating IN PUBLIC with multiple women, some of which were semi-public figures, and it never really came out before late November of this year. What makes anyone think if he cheated again he wouldn't be more careful?

Talk is cheaper than an Augusta National pimento sandwich. Time for Woods to prove the actions match the words.

That's some tough talk by Gene. How about we don't care if we can trust Tiger Woods and just watch him play golf? Is that too easy?

The one part I don't believe Tiger Woods on is when he claims life wasn't fun when he was living his "double life."

"Look at what I was engaged in," Woods said to a packed interview room at Augusta National Golf Club, where Woods held his first news conference in more than five months. "When you're living a life that is a lie, life isn't fun ... that's been stripped away. It feels fun again."

I can't believe that living a life that was a lie and having sex with multiple women wasn't fun...or else Tiger Woods wouldn't have done it. Unless of course he was massively depressed and had some mental problems that caused him to do it...which as I said above I don't care about as long as he hits a golf ball far. Otherwise, he had fun with his life that was a lie.