Tiger Had Himself By The Tail. . .

There's that old expression, even expressed in that Buck Owens classic, "I've got a tiger by the tail", that suggests bad things will follow that unfortunate situation once one lets go, or it slips from one's grasp.

The recent Tiger Woods debacle certainly shows how one may be mauled when things get out of hand. Tiger Woods has apparently lost his wife and family, his hitherto spotless reputation, his sponsorships, and golf - having removed himself from the tour at the moment. (The last can only be good as nobody could possibly play so focused a game as golf when a zillion negatives and possibilities and insults are twirling through one's brain.)

The latest is General Motors' announcement today that it will no longer provide free Cadillacs to Mr. Woods. One supposes that it took the GM executive a few weeks to conclude that handing over expensive autos to a billionaire, one of which he then crashed into a fire plug, is perhaps not the best use of their product (especially as they no longer can fly their executive jet to his home in order to inspect the damage done).

Gillette was first to bail. Somehow the idea of their golden boy, their clean shaven golden boy, sleeping around with women who are not his wife, must have induced in them a vision of the typical thoughtless, homewrecking bum of the Fifties - hirsute and inimical to razors.

Next came a management consultancy, heard singing "you've got to Accentureate the positive" - which, in their opinion, is no longer possible with him.

As for AT&T, perhaps its management thinks that "ordinary" men - but mostly women - will take it to task for having provided Mr. Woods with the means to arrange his illicit trysts. Heaven forfend that AT&T be sucked into that particular funnel, especially when the cellphone business is so cutthroat.

Gatorade will always claim that the decision to scrub the Tiger Woods flavour antedated his exposure, but we all hear the heavy thud of the eyelid winking as the announcement is made. Sure you did! You decided to scotch a drink whose every bottle prominently displayed his name, because nobody was interested any longer.

Well, then, now that he is constantly in our thoughts and blogs that ought to raise your sales. You think? Revive the brand! you'll make millions.

A recent study by University of California suggests the total economic damages from this unfortunate situation could total $12,000,000,000.00. . . Twelve Billion Dollars. No wonder the American economy is not rebounding as it ought.

How heavy is twelve billion dollars, in thousand-dollar bills? Quite a heft, one should think, but is it heavier than the fallout from Mr. Woods's inability to keep a grip on himself?

The problem with developing a squeaky-clean image is that it becomes ever more difficult, in this universe, to remain so as one lives and ages.

While one cannot have much sympathy for the man, there are factors that should be considered, particularly if one thinks grooming one's own toddler to be a super athlete, or dancer, or politician, is a wonderful thing.

Eldrick Tont Woods has been welded to a golf club since he was two. His own father, who by all accounts held the blow-torch in an iron fist, made some ridiculous pronouncements to the effect that his son would change world history for the better. And since Eldrick was two, golf has been the steady diet that nourished his warped and emotionally stunted personality.

One cannot develop emotionally and intellectually when a millstone like this is planted around one's neck. When golf (or acting, or baton-twirling) is all one is allowed to think about, when everything one does is in support of the millstone, other aspects of one's life fade into the distance. Friends, being a stupid young child, adolescence, being a somewhat less stupid young man, disappear along with free time and free thought.

We all know that growing up is painful, especially during the middle teenage years. How much more so when one is not allowed to grow up naturally?

The endless skirt-chasing and sleeping around which have hoisted Mr. Woods by his own petard are symptoms of stunted adolescence. If one cannot partake of the banquet when one is hungry it should come as no surprise that, once one is starving, one is liable to gorge and binge at every opportunity.

The adult thing to do, of course, is to seek help in freeing one's psyche from making the sorts of mistakes that are so often made by child stars of all stripes. But child stars generally grow up to be lopsided - with over-developed needs such as attention and praise, and woefully starved needs and aptitudes in interpersonal and intimate relationships.

It would appear that Mr. Woods has lost almost everything that was important to him - his stature, his income, his endorsements, all of which fed his bottomless ego - as well as something he valued rather less, namely his own family. In return he now is in a deracinated limbo, front and centre in everyone's radar, with nothing to do and no one to talk to, no access to his children and the spectacle of an ugly and costly divorce hanging over his head like Damocles's sword. It didn't help that his advisors gave him bad advice, that it was made known that he would try to bribe his wife with a "bonus" of tens of millions of dollars if only she would stay and keep up the pretense, that a streak of cynicism a mile wide seems to be part of his makeup.

Or was the accumulation of all this perfection simply too much?Perhaps some day it will be possible to determine whether Mr. Woods let go of the tail deliberately. In any case it begs the question:

Was it worth it?


(c)2010 bluemlein