4 comments How Tiger Woods Got His Groove Back

Many analysts have been gnashing their teeth and asking deep questions regarding what is wrong with Tiger Woods since he came back to play competitive golf after the Thanksgiving incident, which led to the revelations of his infidelity, which led to his break from golfing and him going to sex rehab, which led to Bill Simmons losing his damn mind, and finally has us to the point that we now see Tiger isn't winning every tournament he enters...which apparently happened before he tried to be a good person. Also, Tiger's mistresses are now feuding. This really escalated quickly didn't it?

(Also, because Tiger has struggled this doesn't mean he has it harder than Muhammad Ali had it in his comeback and Bill Simmons is still not right, no matter how much he wants to be.)

All those golf analysts needed to do was ask Jemele Hill, because she knows the answer. He needs to go back to cheating on his wife with pornstars. Of course, the problem is that it may not really be cheating at this point because Tiger and his wife are not together. That's beside the point I guess.

As the Tiger Woods comeback continues to derail, it's safe to say his mission to reinvent himself is, so far, a failure.

Tiger has come in fourth in the Masters, missed the cut at Quail Hollow, and has withdrawn from the Players Championship. For him, this is a failure, but for other less successful golfers this is probably a success.

But it's pretty obvious that more than his neck has been bothering him since he reappeared at the Masters last month.

It's his mojo. If only he could go back in time and steal back his mojo from the woman that has stolen it from him, he could improve his golf swing. They should make a movie with a plot similar to this.

(Mike Myers reads what I just wrote and writes it down thinking it is a brilliant idea...but then remembers he has done this movie already)

But these days, he looks like a prisoner, like someone trapped in a life that doesn't quite fit him.

Or he looks like a guy who isn't golfing well and has an injury. I am sure it is his outside life that is affecting him. This makes perfect sense because his personal life never bothered him on the course when he was cheating to him living a perfect existence with no marital stress, so now that he isn't cheating, his personal life will immediately start bothering him on the course. I am sure keeping 10-15 mistresses on the side and playing golf at a world-class level is less mentally taxing than trying to repair your marriage and playing golf at the same world-class level.

I would personally think Tiger's personal life would affect him more on the course if he has a ton of secrets he keeps from the public, but what do I know?

I'm beginning to think that maybe he should return to being the old Tiger.

Like being good at golf again? Tiger has tried this. It hasn't worked too well for him so far.

The cardinal rule in sports has always been that all is forgiven as long as you win, which Tiger used to do better than anyone else.

But I was working under the assumption that a rehabilitated Tiger would be just as mentally tough as a philandering Tiger.

Let me get this straight...because Tiger Woods isn't having sex with multiple women (that we know of), he isn't as mentally strong as he was when he was having sex with multiple women? Does JemeHill think Tiger Woods draws emotional and mental strength from sex? Like he has to have a certain amount of it to "power up" and be ready to play well on the golf course? Does JemeHill believe that Tiger isn't as mentally tough now because somehow not cheating on his wife takes away his edge?

I know when people change in their life, it can affect their on the field/court performance, but I just can't believe Tiger's lack of mental toughness (which I don't think is the problem) is tied somehow to him needing to cheat on his wife in any way.

Is Woods a better golfer when he's juggling numerous women?

I guess that could be something you would wonder. You could also wonder if Tiger is a better golfer when he is completely healthy and hasn't effectively taken a few months off to take care of personal business. I don't believe Tiger needs to start trying to have sex with a girls in a bathroom (copyright 2010 to Ben Roethlisberger), he just needs to learn to adapt his new lifestyle to golf and just focus on golf more and less on whatever is bothering him.

This argument JemeHill made here can easily be turned around. Perhaps because Tiger's marriage is in trouble, this is causing him trouble on the golf course. At the same time he was juggling women, he was also happily married. Perhaps it is the dissolution of his marriage that is causing him mental problems instead of him not having pornstars to text sexual messages to at night.

The question I would ask is if Tiger Woods is a better golfer when he has the illusion of a stable home life and marriage?

He was always mentally stronger than his competition on the course. Is there a connection to the way he played hard and chased women even harder when he was off it?

No, I don't see a connection. I see a much larger connection with Tiger's performance on the course as related to him taking time off from golf and having his life and marriage in shambles. Tiger liked having that cloak of normalcy around him, maybe not having that cloak has caused him some problems on the golf course. Maybe it hasn't, but I think this is more likely than him not being mentally tough because there aren't multiple women he is seeing.

Rick Reilly raised the possibility back before the Masters that Tiger's golf game might be affected by the changes in his life. (See his column here.) That could be what's happening.

You automatically lose any type of credibility when you base your column idea on something Rick Reilly has written or thought of. This is a guy who steals column ideas from himself.

And in no way am I suggesting he should resume his role as a cheating husband.

According to JemeHill if he wants to be a better golfer he will resume these activities. So she is in fact suggesting he resume this role.

Now, he seems determined to portray himself as a magnanimous, enlightened individual, but the truth is he's just another dominant athlete with a chaotic personal life.

Right, and isn't it entirely possible this chaotic personal life is the problem for Tiger and not the fact his personal life isn't more complicated?

Magic Johnson, the greatest point guard in NBA history and now an ESPN analyst, admitted to Oprah Winfrey that he had sex with four or five women at a time. Wilt Chamberlain, one of the greatest centers in NBA history, infamously claimed he slept with 20,000 women. Michael Jordan, the greatest player in NBA history, reportedly coughed up $168 million in his divorce, which was granted a few months after a judge ruled he didn't have to pay the $5 million an alleged former mistress was seeking in a lawsuit.

Everyone knows that professional athletes accumulate women, that's not in question. What is in question is how Tiger Woods can magically become a better golfer by cheating on his wife and going back to his old ways...whatever the hell his "old ways" truly are. I just don't believe because Tiger is a "better person" now, he is a worse golfer. Maybe I am naive or don't understand the mind of a professional athlete.

But it's just a fact of life that superstar athletes, like worshipped entertainers, sometimes accumulate women like statistics and championships.

So because JemeHill wants me to admit athletes accumulate women this also means athletes can have their performance affected negatively by the lack of women around them to cheat on? Sorry, I am not buying this.

It might be distasteful to some of us, but it's as normal to them as sinking a jump shot or a par-saving putt. It seems to feed their egos.

It does feed their egos, but does a lack of an ego in his personal life mean Tiger loses his ego on the golf course and therefore his ability to golf well? Tiger was a great golfer before he was old enough to drive a car, much less have sex with multiple women, so I just can't seem to believe the fact he at one point in his career became dependent on his ego to also be a good golfer. If he was a great golfer at the age of 8 (when I am assuming he wasn't sexually active), he can be a great golfer now too.

But when a dominant athlete is suddenly separated from his lifestyle of entitlement, as Tiger was, it shouldn't come as a surprise if he undergoes some withdrawal symptoms.

When a dominant athlete has his personal life put in the tabloids for public viewing and judging, this could also cause that athlete to struggle for a time. If an athlete's sense (or illusion) of normalcy, his family, leaves him then this could also cause withdrawal symptoms.

Look at it this way. Woods survived the death of his father and won the 2008 U.S Open on one knee. But a mysterious car accident in November and constant prying into his private life by the National Enquirer, TMZ and other tabloid-style media outlets have proved to be much more difficult for him to overcome.

These are two completely different things and can not be judged on the same level.

As mentally tough as Woods is, he seems to be uncomfortable with the idea that people are judging his lifestyle and regarding him as a lousy husband and father.

Physical pain is probably easier to overcome than emotional or mental pain for a person, even for an athlete. This doesn't mean if Tiger started cheating again or went back to "old Tiger" his golf game would improve, because the mental pain of losing his family and the public's changing perception of him is still there.

So if mental toughness is the problem with Tiger, I think even JemeHill sees going back to "old Tiger" wouldn't fix this problem, because the cause of the problem is still present in that his wife has left him and everyone knows his private business. JemeHill essentially ruins the entire premise of her column with this past sentence. While trying to prove her point, she also brings up the source of the mental distress that is hurting his golf game (according to her) will not go away if Tiger starts acting like his old self.

I don't say this lightly; but at this point, a divorce might be the best thing for Woods' golf game.

See, that's the thing...he is essentially divorced right now. So I think a divorce would not necessarily help him on the golf course. Again, this is assuming his problem is mental and not the physical pain he is experiencing.

If he is freed from the expectations of being a married man -- which in theory would lessen the judgment of the public --

Are you kidding? How the hell would Tiger being divorced lessen the judgment of the public? The public has already judged him for his PAST actions and that judgment won't change whether he is married or not. If/When Tiger gets divorced he will still have the expectations his "new life" has put on him, which under JemeHill's theory would still cause him great mental problems and negatively affect his golf game.

he might not feel obligated to carry out his promise to be a better man and a more respectful person on the golf course.

Which JemeHill is assuming is the core of the problem. Tiger is trying to be a nice guy and he can't be a nice guy and still golf well. He will still feel obligated to be a better man and more respectful on the golf course no matter what his marital status is. He set that expectation for himself.

As a single man, even if he's with a different woman every night of the week, he might not be so universally perceived as a shameless sleazebag. Derek Jeter has been connected to a number of women, and no one thinks of him in those terms.

This is incorrect. The genie can't go back in the bottle. Even as a divorced person, Tiger Woods can not participate in any sleazy lifestyle choices and he will still be seen as a shameless sleazebag.

In fact, if he were single it may be worse because then everyone would say, "look at Tiger, he is such a sleazebag. He can't play golf well or isn't happy unless he is sleeping with a different woman every night. He is not a role model for anyone in the world." The perception of Tiger isn't tied to his marriage, but tied to HIM as a person, no matter who is married to.

Derek Jeter hasn't publicly been outed as cheating on his girlfriends with pornstars and had his sex life posted on the front of every magazine. Tiger can't suddenly become more private like Jeter. Again, the genie is out of the bottle. There isn't any undoing this.

What does any of this have to do with golf?

And if Tiger is allowed to be who he wants to be in private, maybe he won't appear to be so unbalanced when it's time to perform publicly.

Yeah, maybe there is a mysterious tie between Tiger's golf skill (as it relates to his ego) and how many women he is currently sleeping with...or maybe not.

I've always believed that circumstances change but people don't. Tiger's circumstances certainly have changed. Maybe he shouldn't be trying so hard to change himself.

Tiger, get your groove and golf game back. Don't try to be a better person and that neck injury will go away and you will all of a sudden be a better golfer.

It's a tough sell for me to believe if Tiger Woods becomes a worse person than he will be a better golfer.