8 comments Rick Reilly Says Tiger Woods' Legacy is Being Ruined by Tiger Woods' Professional Success

Rick Reilly has decided to write another one of those "Why can't Tiger win a major tournament?" columns after the US Open. Actually, Rick spends a lot of time thinking in this column thinking about Tiger's legacy and basically wondering if Tiger's success has ruined his legacy. It seems that Rick has set high expectations for Tiger based on Tiger's early-career success and because Tiger can't reach those expectations anymore then this makes Rick wonder what Tiger's legacy will be. So basically Rick is defining Tiger's legacy as being a somewhat disappointment because of how successful Tiger was early in his PGA career. Rick also manages to slip a Bruce Jenner reference in, which is always an unwelcome surprise. It is unreasonable to expect Tiger to be as great as he was early in his career and it seems he will have to be known as one of the greatest golfers ever rather than the greatest golfer ever. This type of article annoys me because Phil Mickelson is older than Tiger and he has won five majors, while Tiger has won 14 majors, but it is Tiger Woods' legacy that we are so unsure of? 14 majors, no matter when they were won, seem to speak for themselves. I am sure now that Tiger didn't win the Open Championship that Rick is going to start to double up on the "Is Tiger Woods washed up" talk.

It's crazy, but let's say Tiger Woods never wins another major.

That would be so crazy if Tiger never won another major. He would then be considered one of the greatest golfers in PGA history. That's madness! What kind of disturbed mind could ever fathom such a thing?

Let's say he is done at age 37. Let's say he stops at 14, four short of Jack Nicklaus' record.

Let's say we won't use the phrase "let's say" anymore. Let's say we do that, then I would then answer this hypothetical by saying Tiger Woods will be considered as one of the greatest golfers ever whose rise was only matched by his fall. Then I would say he had a meteoric rise and a meteoric fall. Then I would curse Rick Reilly's name.

I don't want to constantly compare Tiger to Phil Mickelson, but Tiger has nine more major wins than Mickelson and Mickelson is older than Tiger. Say Mickelson never wins another major after the Open Championship, why isn't his legacy being questioned?

Or as a colossal disappointment?

The only way Tiger can be seen as a colossal disappointment is if you compare his early-career success to his late-career success. So essentially to call Tiger a disappointment a person would have to be using Tiger's success as a reason why he is so disappointing. This makes not of sense. Tiger exceeded expectations early in his career, so this doesn't mean he is a disappointment for not consistently exceeding the limits he himself has set for...himself.

As a brilliant star? Or a star that burned out halfway across the sky?

He was a brilliant star who had injuries, a scandal, and then struggled to win a major. I think we are being a bit harsh on him, because Tiger has won seven PGA tournaments since he last won a major.

Do you realize that this Tiger tailspin is older than his younger child? It's true: Sam is just about to turn 6. Charlie is 4. And Skid is 5.

Do you realize that you are cherry-picking data that has absolutely no meaning as to the legacy of Tiger Woods? It's the nature of sportswriters to overreact when Tiger wins a tournament and then overreact when Tiger has a poor showing in a tournament. It's not their fault, it's just their nature.

Sunday at the U.S. Open marked five years to the day since his last major triumph -- maybe his best -- the one-legged legend of Torrey Pines. 

Five whole years. Tiger can't match up to what he did early in his career, so he is obviously a disappointment. It's just like an NFL quarterback who puts up 5-6 years of being the best quarterback in the NFL only to fade into being just one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL for the rest of his career. Would we call that quarterback a disappointment? Probably not.

He has gone through the Mount Vesuvius of sex scandals, gotten divorced, moved his home, had more surgeries than Bruce Jenner,

Not hilarious and not-timely.

Now there's this little mumbling you hear in golf circles that (pssst) Tiger might have (keep it to yourself) lost a little of his (gulp) nerve.

So Tiger is now like other golfers on the PGA Tour. How could that be?

The scandal, the surgeries, the slow sucking of time might have turned him a little (cough-cough) scared.

How else do you explain a guy who wins all kinds of minors (13 during the streak) but no majors?

You could explain it by saying his surgeries and time have caught up to him where he no longer has the physical advantage or consistent swing that he once had over his fellow PGA Tour players. You could explain that Tiger just hasn't done well in majors for whatever reason, but it's not like many of the other best PGA Tour players have won multiple majors over this same five year time period. There are other explanations other than chalking it up to Tiger having lost his nerve.

Before this year's Masters, he had won three tournaments of his past four, then he finished a quiet fourth in Augusta.

It was a "quiet" fourth place. Not one of those loud fourth places finishes, but a "quiet" fourth where Tiger had 25% of his prize money reduced for the volume of his finish not matching the decibel requirement for a fourth place finish in a major.

In the 16 majors he has played in this five-year nuclear winter, he has won his last start before a major eight times. Yet never the major itself.

Which obviously means Tiger gets a lot of nerve up the week before the major and then loses his nerve entirely the week of the major. The fact Tiger has won eight times prior to a major isn't impressive, but just a sign of how disappointing Tiger has become.

Even more telling, he's often been The Old Tiger in majors when the pressure was off (Thursday and Friday) and The New Tiger when the pressure was on.

So Tiger is a disappointment because he doesn't play well in eight rounds during the golf year? He still wins minor tournaments, still plays well on Thursday and Friday in majors, but can only "quietly" place fourth in major tournaments because he can't handle the Saturday/Sunday pressure. Maybe he cracks under the pressure now that he doesn't have multiple women on the side. It's the lack of consistent sex from multiple partners that is bringing Tiger down. Just like Aerosmith can't write a decent song now that they are clean and not using drugs.

So what about it? If he's done winning majors now, what should be his legacy?

I'm not sure this question should be asked for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, Woods is 37 years old so his legacy is far from cemented. Next most importantly, this legacy that Rick Reilly is so intent on figuring out is assuming Tiger never wins another major, which isn't a point I am ready to concede. Next to that in importance, is that Tiger's early-career success helped cement most of his legacy. He is one of the best golfers in PGA Tour history.

Well, if Tiger Woods is really done, I think he would go down as the most gifted golfer in history and the golfer who wasted the most gifts.

How can you claim he wasted his gifts if he won 14 majors? Maybe that was the extent of his ability to use his gifts. Maybe I'm wrong, but the idea Tiger Woods wasted his gifts doesn't jive with his PGA record. He has won a lot of tournaments and holding him to the standard he set in his 20's doesn't seem fair to me. He set the bar high, so it seems reasonable to expect he can't always reach this bar he has set.

To win 14 majors in only 13 years, then to never win another? That would be like swimming the English Channel and then drowning in the hotel pool.

I realize it isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, but are the Patriots a disappointment because they haven't won a Super Bowl since 2004? Is Peyton Manning a disappointment as a quarterback because he has only won one Super Bowl? He starts the season off strong and then starts to fade in the playoffs, isn't that some criticism Manning receives? That makes him somewhat like Tiger, so does that mean Peyton Manning's NFL career is a disappointment?

14 majors in 13 years IS a career. It almost doesn't matter what Tiger Woods does after that, because for a decade-and-a-half he was easily the best golfer in the world. Also, Rick is still assuming Tiger will never win another major in an effort to ponder Tiger's legacy, which is not only ridiculous given Tiger's age but is also still a huge assumption in my opinion.

If Tiger Woods is really done, he'd be remembered as a strong man who wrecked his career with his own weakness. He'd be thought of as an immortal and an immoral.

If only Tiger had worn Ed Hardy shirts and spent his time taking pictures of him pretending to choke Rick Reilly then he could have avoided the women and immorality that ruined his career.

Tiger Woods was hit by an out-of-control Tiger. He'd be lumped with Mike Tyson, two men whose hunger for greatness was sunk by their hunger for lust. 

Yeah, these two athletes aren't comparable at all. Mike Tyson went to jail for raping a woman and Tiger Woods had multiple affairs. I know Rick has taken on the role of the moral majority since he suggested Colin Kaepernick needs to reconnect with his birth parents because it worked out so well for a member of Rick's family, but there is a difference in going to jail for rape and having multiple affairs. A pretty big difference. Notice how far this assumption that Tiger won't win another major has taken us. Rick just compared Tiger to Mike Tyson. This is what happens when you assume.

If Tiger Woods is really done, he would be remembered among the three greatest who ever played: along with Nicklaus and Bobby Jones. All three of them owned not only golf but the entire American sports landscape for a time. All three won tournaments at a dizzying rate. Yet neither of the first two could touch Woods, who won four professional majors in a row, a feat unlikely to be topped.

So why would it even be considered that Tiger could be a disappointment? How could this even be suggested if Tiger is one of the three greatest golfers ever, except he had even more extraordinary short-term success than the other two golfers considered the best ever? If Rick believes Tiger is among the three greatest golfers ever then there's no way he can be considered to have been a star that burned out halfway across the sky, could he? If that were true, what would that make Nicklaus and Bobby Jones?

He'd be placed alongside Arnold Palmer, who brought golf to the truck drivers and the waitresses. Woods brought it to people of color.

"People of color." I didn't know it was 1980 where Rick lives.

He is Kobe Bryant in long pants: awesome and feared and perhaps best viewed from a distance. 

Rick compares Tiger to another athlete who was accused of sexual assault. I'm not entirely sure Rick understands that having an extramarital affair is not considered sexual assault.

Do you realize that in the Merion media center, Tiger Woods had his own leaderboard? There was only one name on it: his. America might pull for Phil Mickelson, 

I don't cheer for Phil Mickelson. For some reason he annoys me. It may be his hair or how commentators act like he is the only golfer ever to have to balance his work with his family. Did you know one time he had a pager on him during the US Open in case his wife went into labor? He attended his daughter's graduation and then flew back to play a round of golf this past weekend. Every family issue involving Mickelson is treated like the first time a professional athlete has had to balance work and life.

Lastly, and this is unfair but no less true, but if Tiger Woods never wins another major, he'll be remembered not for what was but what could have been.

Perhaps by people who insisting on writing the narrative of Tiger's career before it is truly over and in the most dramatic way possible. Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't get the whole "What could have been?" narrative that Rick Reilly is furthering. We know what could have been and what was. Tiger showed us what he could do for 13 years and it was very impressive. Don't compare Tiger now to his early success as if it is reasonable to expect him to rip off winning a major every single calendar year. No other golfer in PGA history has done this, so why expect this from Tiger? He peaked and now he isn't peaking anymore.

My God, he had eight majors by the time he was 26. Even if the next 15 years of his career was going to be only half as good, he'd end up with 20, wouldn't he?

Rick needs to ask himself if these were reasonable long-term expectations for Tiger. He was going to get older, injuries would happen, and no other golfer has kept up this pace so why should he expect Tiger to keep up this pace? Tiger not living up to the unreasonable standard he set for himself does not make him a disappointment.

If Tiger Woods stopped winning majors now, it would make him a ghost walking among us, a living, breathing cautionary tale.

And the cautionary tale would be, "don't grow older and don't get injured, but also don't have success early in your career because people like Rick Reilly will always expect this from you."

He'd be trapped in a cage of his own design, living every day being compared to the incomparable -- himself.

But you, Rick Reilly, are the one who is comparing Tiger Woods to himself. You are doing this on your own accord, so couldn't you stop the cautionary tale by simply stop comparing Woods to himself and stop just assuming he won't ever win another major?

It's like the media can't stop themselves from creating narratives and then forcing themselves into the story. Rick states Tiger Woods is a cautionary tale because he will always get compared to himself earlier in his career, but Rick is the one creating this cautionary tale by comparing Tiger to his earlier self. Just stop holding Tiger to the expectations he has set for himself and the only cautionary tale about becoming worse at your job as you get older is that tale of Rick Reilly's writing career.

6 comments What? Jemele Hill Wrote a Column about Race?

You may not believe this, but JemeHill has written a column about race that feels like it isn't well-thought through. This time she goes after Steve Williams, who is better known as Tiger Woods' former caddy, for his comments about Tiger Woods' asshole. Obviously when Williams said he wanted to shove something up Woods' black asshole this was incredibly racist to JemeHill. This caused JemeHill to think of other racist terms Williams may use to refer to Tiger Woods and decides these imagined terms are what makes Williams such a terrible racist. So even if Williams' language wasn't racist, just imagine what else he could say about Woods! There's no further proof required to know Williams is a huge racist to the point he probably refuses to go out at night while the sky is black.

JemeHill also has some harsh words for Tiger Woods, who absolutely refuses to see things from JemeHill’s point of view publicly on race. Clearly this doesn’t mean Woods’ point of view could be correct or does this mean his view has any merit, but just shows how in denial about race Tiger Woods truly is. It is like her own version of a racial dictatorship where those fellow minorities who don't agree with JemeHill are cast as being out of touch or have an ulterior motive to ignore "the truth."

If Steve Williams is bold enough to tell a room full of people that he wanted to shove Adam Scott's WGC Bridgestone Invitational win up Tiger Woods' "black a------," then what does Williams say about Woods in private?

Who knows what else Steve Williams says? I am sure it is 100% more racist than his comment about Tiger Woods’ asshole. JemeHill isn’t satisfied with merely looking at Williams’ comments and determining if they are racist or not, she has to add other potentially fictional layers to this situation in order to make Williams seem even more racist. She isn’t satisfied with commenting on the current comments, she has to add other layers to further her own agenda.

I think it's a fair question.

Well, you did create the question just now. So I’m not shocked you think your own question is a fair one.

Williams was among his peers at the caddie awards in Shanghai when he added that biting racial qualifier to express his utter disdain for Woods, who fired him in July.

A normal person would think, “What a jerk comment by Williams. He’s clearly a bitter man.” Then this normal person would move on with his/her life. Not JemeHill. She wonders how she can blow these comments into an even bigger deal in order to write a column. It isn't that Williams' comments aren't stupid or he doesn't seem bitter, I am not just sure his comment about Woods' "black asshole" deserves to be subjected to further analysis such as this.

So I immediately wondered if what Williams says about Woods in private is even more candid, even more venomous and, yes, even more racial when he isn't in a crowd.

And that's the scary part.

So here is what we have so far:

Steve Williams said something bitter and racially-toned about Tiger Woods.

JemeHill wonders if Steve Williams says even worse things about Woods in private and then creates thoughts of how venomous Williams is privately.

JemeHill thinks the idea of Williams making terribly racist comments in private is scary and immediately begins writing a column about how the imaginary things she herself believes Williams says in private makes him an even bigger racist.

So we have JemeHill reacting to a racially-toned comment by expanding this one comment into an entire set of thinking she believes Williams to hold privately and then proudly begins to write an article as if the imagined thoughts she had are real statements Williams made. To think I re-tweeted something JemeHill wrote the other day. Embarrassing for me.

When Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman used a lynching metaphor in early 2008 to describe how Woods' younger competitors should treat him -- this was back when Woods was still the top player in the world -- the remark felt clumsy and misguided, but not necessarily racist.

That comment felt more racist than talking about someone’s black asshole. Given the racial undertones of lynching I can see how that remark can be considered racist by some. Saying the color of someone’s skin and then talking about their asshole…not so much. Of course, I wouldn’t expect any consistency from JemeHill.

Williams' statement, on the other hand, seems so vindictive that it stinks with entitlement and racism.

So the amount of vindictiveness in a statement also determines the racism of the comment, but only if the correct amount of entitlement is present. Got it. I feel like I need to be presented with an official formula adding in the amount vindictiveness and entitlement that puts a statement up to the threshold of racism.

So unlike Adam Scott, Williams' current boss, I'm not willing to give Williams a free pass and excuse what he did as simply a poor choice of words.

Much like comments later in this column about Tiger Woods, because Adam Scott doesn’t agree with JemeHill’s point of view these comments were racist, he is giving Williams a free pass. So you either agree with JemeHill’s point of view or there is something wrong with you and you are giving Williams a free pass. I have no issue with those who bring up race in a discussion, but I have a problem when those who talk about race and believe their point of view is infallible enough to where it should be universally shared.

It's more than that.

You want it to be more than that.

Williams' words seem calculating.

Because we all know when a person threatens to shove an object up someone’s asshole this is a well-thought use of wording.

Williams' bitterness toward Woods is understandable. Woods fired him after he'd caddied 13 of Woods' 14 major victories.

It’s business. I’m not sure Williams should still be bitter, but if he is then maybe that’s understandable.

But here is where things get murky. After Williams caddied Scott's Bridgestone victory, he said it was the most gratifying win of his career.

Gratifying? How racist! It was gratifying to beat Tiger Woods, who is a minority by the way. If Steve Williams finds it gratifying to beat Tiger Woods at golf, in what other ways would Steve Williams like to beat Tiger Woods? Perhaps physically, with a whip? If Steve Williams wants to lash Tiger Woods with a whip while Tiger is in submissive position then that reeks of racism. I can’t believe Steve Williams said it would be gratifying to beat Tiger Woods with a whip. How racist!

Really? Winning Bridgestone is more gratifying than 60 wins and 13 majors? That's like someone saying an NFL wild card playoff berth is more fulfilling than making it to a Super Bowl.

Clearly Williams is using some hyperbole when making this statement. Still, I can see how a single win over Tiger Woods would be more gratifying than the wins with Woods were. Athletes are able find wins that aren’t in championship games to be the most gratifying of their career. I would imagine there are some Red Sox fans who find defeating the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS to be more gratifying than winning the World Series. An athlete beating a team that cut or released him could also be a very gratifying win compared to a playoff victory.

But this time, it just seems as if Williams' bitterness has morphed into something far more personal and toxic.

Of course JemeHill has no proof of this. She is taking his statement about Tiger’s “black asshole” and turning into the tip of the potentially fictional iceberg of what Williams says privately. If you combine Williams' fictional private thoughts about minorities with his satisfaction at winning a golf tournament as a caddy for a different golfer, then you can turn it into Williams’ toxic racial vendetta against Woods. I just think this is a hard leap to make. There are a lot of assumptions and imagination required to get to this conclusion.

The fact that he injected Woods' race into a description of how badly he wanted to show Tiger up is a troubling indicator that this wasn't just about usurping his former employer.

If we want to get technical, Woods isn’t actually black. He considers himself to be “caublanasian.” So would it have been as offensive if Williams said he wanted to shove it up Tiger’s Asian asshole? Maybe Williams did mean the comment to have racial undertones other than merely being a description of a portion of Tiger’s race, maybe he didn’t. The point is we can only take the comment on its face and turning the comment into something bigger by creating other layers of what Williams COULD think or MAY believe is pure speculation. Yet, JemeHill bases much of her entire conclusion on this speculation.

It seems like Williams was especially displeased that he'd been fired by a black man.

The only way you can get to this point is to read way too much into what Williams said. He said something stupid, but nowhere in “Tiger Woods’ black asshole” does it say he is mad he got fired by a black man. If anything, he was mad he got fired for doing his job well and is angry he seemed to be the sacrificial lamb to help explain Woods' struggles on the course post-divorce.

Williams might as well have told the audience, "How dare this black so-and-so fire me?"

Williams may as well have said that, except HE DIDN’T SAY THAT. To get this point you have to make a ton of assumptions:

-You have to assume Williams made the comment in a manner intended to be racial.

-You have to assume Williams has private thoughts which are much more racist than this one comment and this one outward comment was a small representative of the private thoughts Woods has towards minorities.

-You have to assume Williams is still bitter he was fired by Tiger Woods.

-You have to assume Williams did not like being fired by Tiger Woods because Tiger Woods is black and not for any other reason.

-Then you have to assume he was expressing his dislike for being fired by a black man by quickly allowing his long-held and previously unseen private racial toxicity to be seen in public.

-Finally, you have to assume the best method Williams had of expressing he didn’t like to be fired by a black man was to threaten to shove an award up this black man's ass.

And that is racist.

In the completely fictional conclusion you have come to, that would be racist. It would also be racist if Williams had come to the podium in black-face wearing a red shirt, eating fried chicken, drinking grape soda and then pretended to have sex with a porn star while screaming racial slurs. That would be very racist. Of course, much like actually Williams saying he didn’t like to be fired by a black man, this didn’t happen.

JemeHill should be embarrassed to write like this. She is not even misconstruing Williams’ words, but is actively making up words Williams never actually spoke and then gives them a reason behind Williams saying these fictional words based on beliefs we don’t know for sure that Steve Williams actually has.

Woods, who spoke of the incident for the first time on Tuesday, also characterized his former caddie's comments in the same manner.

"Stevie's certainly not a racist," Woods said in advance of the Australian Open.

Tiger, JemeHill thinks you are just turning a blind eye to the racist situation she just singlehandedly created. Since you do not agree with her position, and because there is no way she is wrong, you are in denial about race in America.

I don't know what's in Williams' heart,

Apparently you do since you just wrote an entire column speculating what you believe Williams actually believes and meant by his comment. You can’t write an entire article speculating and dissecting what Steve Williams said, while creating racial undertones, and then say you don’t know what is in Williams’ heart. Your writing says something different about what you think you do and do not know.

so I can't address his overall attitudes toward people of color.

Which, again, you just did address his overall attitude toward people of color.

And considering how much Woods has spent his career trying to be racially neutral -- despite arguably being the most noteworthy person of color to play professional golf -- it isn't surprising that he would once again sidestep anything involving race in his response to Williams' comment.

Or Tiger Woods may actually believe Steve Williams isn’t a racist and didn’t intend this comment wasn’t racially motivated, but he believes it was just a really poor choice of words. JemeHill thinks this is nonsense, because by not agreeing with her point of view, Tiger is just in denial. She feels there is absolutely no possibility she is misunderstanding the situation or her point of view is wrong. That would be impossible.

It was Tiger who reportedly told racially insensitive jokes to GQ writer Charles Pierce in a 1997 profile that followed his historic Masters win.

If Tiger tells racially insensitive jokes to Charles Pierce for an article then imagine the filth that comes out of his mouth in private!

(Cue joke about porn stars and weird sex games that Tiger probably played with his mistresses while he was married)

At some point, Woods has to understand that no matter how many cute nicknames he devises to explain his complicated ethnicity, and no matter how much he'd like to pretend his race is not an issue,

Yet again, JemeHill struggles with what words actually come out of a person’s mouth and what these words mean. Tiger never said race wasn’t an issue, he just didn’t have a problem with Williams’ comments from the point of view of race.

it still matters to some people.

Like JemeHill. Because if she couldn’t write about race then she would have nothing else to write about. So the conclusion JemeHill has reached is Tiger Woods pretends race is not an issue and that is why he didn’t find Williams’ comments to be racially-tinged. I realize race matters to some people, but JemeHill is really stretching to go from Steve Williams saying he wants to shove an award up Tiger Woods’ black asshole to Williams meaning he couldn’t believe he got fired by a black golfer.

JemeHill has to understand no matter how many assumptions she wants to stretch out in order to get to the “real” meaning behind Williams’ comment, no matter how much she’d like to pretend Williams’ comment meant more than an urge to shove something up Woods’ butt, it doesn’t mean her point of view is correct.

3 comments It Takes Three Columns To Replace Peter King

I am no longer in denial. I miss Peter King's MMQB. I miss knowing I can wake up on a Monday and have some elitist idiocy and excessive Brett Favre mentions that I can mock. It gets my week off to a great start and life is just not the same without him rambling on about a conversation that he had with Mark Sanchez about how great the Jets will be this year. It takes three columns on this Monday to replace Peter.

Overall, the replacement MMQBer's have been pretty bland, but this week's MMQB written by Steve Sabol did contain a few points of interest to me.

One question I'm asked more than any other is: Who is the greatest player in NFL history? I can't answer it. It's like asking me to name my favorite noodle in a spaghetti dinner. It's tough to name the top 10 players, even the top 100. But at NFL Films, we're taking a crack at it anyway.

Airing in September is our latest project for the NFL Network called The Top 100: The NFL's Greatest Players. The players were selected by a vote of 85 panelists, which consisted of Hall of Fame selectors, coaches, general managers, owners, scouts, journalists, TV analysts and statisticians. Ranking the great players is, in a way, like rating the saints. Is St. Peter better than St. Paul? Would you pick St. Mark over St. Matthew? Our show won't end any arguments, but it will certainly start some.

I am glad Steve Sabol got this opportunity to write MMQB and have thousands of people read what he says...then takes time to pimp out his upcoming show in the very first paragraph. So he turns MMQB into an advertisement for his show. That's nice. I know it may be a great show, but is it really worth putting it as the main topic while you are a guest columnist?

I don't have anything against Steve Sabol but his MMQB had an entire feel of "the good old days were better than football today." It felt like I was reading a column by a 85 year old man who hasn't watched football in the last twenty years. Sabol's MMQB definitely has a late 1980's feel about it to me. I am not sure anyone present day players (like after 1990) got mentioned except for Adrian Peterson and maybe two other players. This column could have easily been written in 1990.

The first half of MMQB consists of Steve Sabol making up categories and picking players who are the "best" in those categories. Just as a note on what I was talking about when I said this column feels like it was written by an 85 year old man, the "winners" of these categories are all old-time football players. The most modern player or person in these category winners is Walter Payton...and he last played in the NFL in 1987.

Most Photo-Dramatic Face: Larry Csonka

His nose was so bent and re-bent he had to breathe through his ears.

This is an example of his "awards" explanations. You can understand why I didn't feel the need to cover this.

Then, as always, the "Ten Things..." comments get somewhat interesting.

1. I think Adrian Peterson's fumbling problem -- he did it more times last year than any other running back -- is an outgrowth of what makes him so effective. He runs more viciously than any back in the league.

So what is the "outgrowth" that makes Chris Johnson, Steven Jackson, Thomas Jones, and Maurice Jones-Drew so effective? All of them had more yards rushing than Adrian Peterson. They had 9 fumbles while rushing the ball among them to Peterson's 6 fumbles while rushing the ball, which doesn't include the postseason. Do they not run viciously? I think Adrian Peterson is becoming slightly overrated as a running back. He seems to have this perception among many in the media as the obvious best all-around back in the NFL and that isn't quite true. There are running backs who don't fumble as much and have a better per carry average than Adrian Peterson. He got the 4th most carries and had the 6th most rushing yards last year.

Peterson is a great running back, but I don't think he is the best in the NFL and I don't think his fumbles can be excused by just saying he runs more viciously than any other running back in the NFL. It's simply not true. He may run hard, but so do other running backs who play in the NFL.

Adrian should watch some film of Jim Taylor, the Packer Hall of Famer. Like Peterson, he perceived every play as an examination of his manhood. He spat, elbowed and battled his way to five consecutive 1,000-yard seasons in the 1960s, and he fumbled less than any top back of his era.

So it is possible to run hard without fumbling? So the fumbling isn't an outgrowth of him running hard, but is an outgrowth of him just fumbling a lot? So the above excuse about "running hard" was all bullshit?

5. I think the obscurity into which 49ers running back Hugh McElhenny has fallen is both puzzling and shameful. I couldn't believe he wasn't selected as one of our Top 100! He ran with a style and kind of joyous plan that made his long runs delightful to watch.

He probably fell into obscurity because he wasn't that good of a running back when compared to today's players, he played in an era when there weren't many great athletes playing football and he ran for a total of 5,281 yards in his career...or 2,047 more yards than Chris Johnson has after two years in the NFL. Basically he was an athletic, white running back who was good in his time.

These old time players were great in their time, but the fewer games played "back in the day" and the lack of athletes in the NFL make their numbers appear to be inferior to today's NFL players.

7. I think many coaches today magnify turnovers and use those plays as a reason for losing.

I think there have been multiple studies that have shown the correlation between a team losing the turnover battle and losing the football game. Reducing turnovers is the best way to win a game. I don't think this is magnified too much. It's pretty well known that teams which turn over the ball a lot have a harder time winning a football game in general.

By turnovers, they mean, "My staff did everything right, our game plan was sound but our players screwed up."

Which is exactly what happens. It is not the staff trying to shed responsibility, but just stating the truth.

In 1979, the Steelers led the league in turnovers yet won the Super Bowl. In 1981, the 49ers had six turnovers in the NFC Championship game but still beat the Cowboys.

So two instances where a team had a lot of turnovers and still won the game are supposed to show us that turnover margin is an overrated statistic? This is idiocy to try and convince me that turnovers don't matter because a team won a NFC Championship once with six turnovers and the 1979 Steelers led the league in turnovers and still won the Super Bowl. These are outliers to the rule, not the rule.

In today's era -- with the salary cap and free agency -- you can't build super teams (like the '62 Packers with 10 Hall of Famers or the '79 Steelers with nine) that dominate all phases of the game. Those days are gone. Everybody has flaws. Each year we have four or five really good teams, but no great ones.

Read this sentence again. Who wrote this sentence? Steve Sabol or Joe Morgan?

a. The best advice I can give to aspiring filmmakers is get a good opening and a good ending and get them as close together as possible. I think everything today is too long. Movies run over two hours. High Noon, the greatest western ever made, ran 84 minutes. TV opens and teases are overproduced, overcut and repetitive.

How much of an old man does Steve Sabol seem like?

He hates anything not made or produced before the late 1970's! "Gone With the Wind" was 224 minutes long, all of the "Godfather" movies are long, and "Citizen Kane" was 119 minutes long. Some movies are too long, that's true, but it doesn't mean the best way to make a movie is to make it short.

b. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller influenced how I live my life. It taught me to approach every problem, no matter how difficult or disheartening, as a potential source of humor. The world belongs to those who can laugh at it.

The film version of this movie was 122 minutes long. IT WAS TOO LONG! SHORTEN THE MOVIE! I WON'T GO TO ANY MOVIE THAT WILL REQUIRE A BATHROOM BREAK!

c. My aggravating/enjoyable travel note: The only thing I dislike about my job is the travel. The planes are dirty, often late and the service is lousy. I have travel anxiety. I call it tripidation.

The jokes Steve Sabol uses in MMQB makes Peter King look like Richard Pryor.

-The second article today involves Jay Mariotti and what has become his daily verbal pounding of Tiger Woods.

The scariest sentence in the entire column comes in the biography of Jay Mariotti:

Jay Mariotti is a national columnist for FanHouse. He also is a daily panelist on ESPN's "Around The Horn". Mariotti was the lead sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and is a Hall of Fame voter.

Jay Mariotti has a Hall of Fame vote and is a member of the BWAA. If anyone ever wonders what is wrong with the Hall of Fame voting and the BWAA in general, look no further. Here is a part of the problem. Writers like Jay Mariotti have a vote that actually means something.

The title of this epic and resounding column is "Time To Ignore Tiger, Focus on Real Golfers." It's an interesting title considering on 7/16 Mariotti wrote a column called "Old Course Soothes Woes of Tiger, Daly" and later on 7/16 wrote a column called, "As Winds Bury Woods, Vuvuzela Fever Returns."

Basically, Jay Mariotti will do anything to put "Tiger Woods" in the title to his columns to get the pageviews. Also, because Mariotti has been continuously writing about Woods, he is the one who needs to ignore Tiger and focus on other golfers...but that doesn't necessarily help his pageviews increase.

Out along the ropes on the 14th hole, grown adults still were running and jostling for viewing space Saturday, even as Tiger Woods continued to shrink in relevance and golfing girth. They followed him by the thousands, not concerned that he has become a non-contending wannabe and that a third-round duel between two legitimate challengers -- including Paul Casey, an ENGLISHMAN trying to win THE BRITISH OPEN -- was much more compelling.

Of course that duel wasn't compelling enough for Jay Mariotti to write a column about it. He wrote about Tiger Woods instead.

Others just wanted to be voyeurs, consumed by his personal misery and the systematic demise of his once-impenetrable game when they should have been doing something more productive, like ordering the greasy fish and chips.

Or they could be writing a column about Tiger Woods like Jay Mariotti does. He's such a hypocrite at times.

Who ever thought an obscure golfer from South Africa, nicknamed "Shrek'' by his friends for the gap in his front teeth, would stand on history's doorstep as Woods takes another tumble toward post-scandal oblivion?

No one! That's who! The official Vegas odds of "A golfer from South Africa who looks like a Dreamworks character because he has a gap in his teeth will win the British Open while Tiger Woods will have two good rounds and two bad rounds" was 1,484,983,000 : 1.

This was right behind the odds of "A golfer from America will fall in the lake while in fourth place get bitten by an alligator, miss two straight birdie putts, and then lose fourth place to a golfer who had eggs and bacon for breakfast."

He did slam a couple of clubs, though, talking bitterly to himself and forgetting his hollow vows to be "a better person'' and "make my behavior more respectful of the game." At this point, does it really matter how he behaves if he isn't even contending for majors?

So Jay Mariotti brings up Tiger's bad behavior and how it doesn't gel with his previous statement that he would curb this bad behavior and then asks if it is really worth bringing up?

In his previous three majors, he succumbed to someone named Y.E. Yang at the PGA Championship,

Asians are supposed to suck at golf! Jay thinks Tiger should only lose to a guy named Y.E. Yang if it is a karate competition.

For now, until further notice, let's concentrate on the players who deserve our attention.

Look for another column about Tiger Woods from Jay Mariotti in the next week.

We can tell. Especially when he is juxtaposed against the man who used to win the majors, Eldrick Woods, who is miserable and about to fade from the radar screen.

He will fade as soon as sportswriters stop talking about him in order to increase their pageviews.

Do yourself a favor, as I am, and devote your attention span to Louis Oosthuizen.

Whoever he is.

Do yourself a favor Jay Mariotti, and quit being a hypocrite. Using Tiger's name in the title of your columns to get people to read it. If Tiger is such an old story then why the hell is he all over Mariotti's column after Oosthuizen won the tournament and AFTER Mariotti said we shouldn't focus on Tiger anymore.

From Mariotti's article on 7/18 (you can see how Mariotti devotes his time away from Tiger):

-Like no one we've seen since, well, Tiger Woods in his pre-scandal prime,

-Woods is lost in life, with no better chance of reviving his decaying golf game, it seems, than saving his marriage.

-Alas, he found one on No. 14, falling short of the spotless 2000 record of the golfer formerly known as Tiger Woods,

-He found another way to stay loose: laughter. Does Tiger Woods remember laughter?

-The game, they understand over here, is bigger than a fallen celebrity who suffered his worst four-round finish in a major in six years. And to think Woods switched putters for the first time in more than 10 years. How did that work out?

-"One of the worst putting weeks I've ever had," he said.

Oh, really?

"I'm not going to win all of them. I've lost a lot more than I've won," said Woods, still in denial as his major-less streak stretched to 25 months after his new putter abandoned him. "I'm glad I'm done. You just can't play and expect to win golf tournaments if you have nine or 10 three-putts for a week. No one can win doing that. I've got to clean that up before I tee up again."

Is that a threat? Or a promise?

A sport ruled by one man for more than a decade is swirling in surrealism now. Suddenly, people we've never heard of -- Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen -- can win majors and leave Woods and Mickelson choking in their fumes. It may not be good for ratings and pizzazz.

This was the column Mariotti wrote about Oosthuizen won the British Open. It sure sounds like Mariotti has devoted his attention span to Oosthuizen since he wrote significant portions of his column about Tiger Woods. Mariotti sure seems infatuated with a guy who had faded from his radar screen.

-Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley both did not like LeBron's move to the Heat.

I feel like I keep harping on this point, but it is obvious now it was a planned move by these three players to end up on the same team. Whether the plan works or not, who really knows right now? It is obvious there was some collusion and even tampering (at least in my opinion) in this situation. I know some people feel like hypocrites because they complain athletes too often go chase the money, which is something LeBron didn't do (even though there is no state income tax in Florida so that helps out his decision in leaving money on the table). I have no problem with what he did. He is a free agent and outside of any rule breaking he is free to sign a contract with whichever team he would like.

I really do appreciate Kevin Durant though. He quietly signed an extension with the Thunder and is staying with the team he was drafted by. He didn't turn it into a six-city bid contest or talk about how he doesn't know what he will do when he becomes a free agent. He signed a contract and went on with his life.

The main problem I have with James, Bosh, and Wade's move to the same team is that I don't think it is a good long-term move for them. They may get their championship, but only Wade will not have the stigma that he needed to team with other great players to do it. That's what Barkley and Jordan are saying.

"There's no way, in hindsight, I would've ever called up Larry (Bird), called up Magic (Johnson) and said, 'Hey, look, let's get together and play on one team,'" Jordan said during an interview on NBC after playing in a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada (photo right).

In fairness, both Magic and Larry Bird had enough help on their team to win a championship. Jordan is the only one who would have had to go to another team to play with Hall of Fame-type players. Still, I think it is better for the NBA and better for each great player's legacy to try to get through each other to win an NBA title.

"Things are different," Jordan said. "I can't say that's a bad thing. It's an opportunity these kids have today. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys."

I think that is the difference and what will end up hurting LeBron James. I can't help but think he is going to have the stigma that he had to join up with his rivals to win a championship rather than going through them in route to the NBA title. Even if James win seven championships with the Heat, it will be stated that he didn't do it as the clear leader of the team. Maybe I am wrong and James could certainly play the Magic Johnson role on the Heat, but when someone is naming the Top 10 NBA players of all-time, James may not be as high on the list as he could have been...or not on the list at all.

Maybe it is admirable he has given up personal glory for the sake of winning a championship, but it is also seen by many as the easy way out. Sports fans hate few things more than athletes who never live up to their potential because of their own doing.

While many believe that move has elevated the Heat into the team to beat in 2010-11, others aren't quite so sure, particularly since James will have to share the ball much more with his new teammates than he did during his time with the Cavs.

The Heat are getting quite a supporting cast together around those three guys so I do see them winning a championship. I think James will be able to share the ball more for a period of time, but won't it eat at him that he isn't considered the best player on his own team by some? This is a guy who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in high school, had a campaign with Nike where he was essentially considered a basketball Jesus and the fans were "witnesses" to his greatness, and he has won two straight MVP awards.

He had an entire television show based around his free agent decision. His ego is huge. I know James has stated he doesn't want to take all of the shots in a game or have the team rely on him to score, but I am sure he also likes that his team relies on him in many ways that the Miami team won't. Or at least he will find he liked this.

In an interview last week on a Miami radio station, TNT analyst and former NBA star Charles Barkley criticized James' move to Miami.

"He'll never be Jordan," Barkley told radio station 790 The Ticket. "This clearly takes him out of the conversation. He can win as much as he wants to.

This move will work out very well if James is fine with this statement being true. He'll never be Kobe Bryant in some people's minds either. I hope he will be fine with this. Bryant had a decent supporting cast over the last two seasons but he certainly didn't have another player like Dwyane Wade on his team. I see LeBron thinks he is fine with this, but I don't know if he will be.

More importantly, is Dwyane Wade fine with sharing the spotlight. He did it with Shaq, but it was well-known that Shaq was a sidekick and Wade was the superior player. Now Wade is the second-best player on his own team. How will that sit with him?

Barkley later added, "LeBron, if he would've (stayed) in Cleveland, and if he could've got a championship there, it would have been over the top for his legacy, just one (James' being the Cavs' big star) in Cleveland. No matter how many he wins in Miami, it clearly is Dwyane Wade's team."

Here's the rub (in my opinion)...it is Dwyane Wade's team, but if it becomes LeBron's team how will this affect Wade? He's the one who recruited these guys and sacrificed his free agent status as well to have them join him in Miami. There's no doubt the Heat will be a great team, but I feel like we could have another Shaq-Kobe showdown coming. It could conceivably be worse because Wade and James can control the ball and drive to the basket, while Shaq needed the ball passed to him generally to score. Either Wade or James will need to reduce their ego short-term and long-term for this to work.

Short-term this is an awesome team. Long-term I think it will hurt LeBron's legacy and either Wade or LeBron will have to be fine with being second banana. I just don't know if that will happen.

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.

5 comments 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.