Tiger Finally Talks: Admits He’s Human and Not Perfect
The Tiger Woods post-Thanksgiving saga and potential scandal depending on when the world’s most famous athlete decides to speak up continues to boggle the mind. New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey’s writes ”we are now witnessing his hooking and slicing his image straight into the rough, into the trees, into the drink.” I agree.
I can’t say how much damage his silence and all the speculation thereafter will affect his selling power, but it personally shows me as a fan of Tiger Woods since his junior golf days, another side to his personality. It looks to me as arrogance. Not putting out a statement that would appease the minds of millions of his fans is dumbfounding or simply, dumb. The statement on Tiger Woods’ web site just begs for more speculation and whomever advised him to put it out should meet the same fate as Tiger’s former caddy “Fluff.”
Tiger calls the malicious rumors “irresponsible.” What is irresponsible is the fact that there is no explanation from him and it’s been more than 48 hours since the bewildering car accident. His silence is now bigger news than the actual event that caused him to be in the news. The speculations are wide-ranging from a marriage spat to rushing to a Black Friday sale though I personally think it was to test the airbags of his Escalade. (GM/Cadillac–It failed miserably since the airbags apparently didn’t deploy. Judging by the neighbor’s 911 call, it should have deployed.)
As a PR professional, I always knew his perfect image was made up, but call me naive, I bought into it. For many years since the notorious GQ interview he did many years ago, Tiger hasn’t had a hiccup that would cost him a cent from his billion dollar image. He made all the right moves from media interviews to the charitable causes that he aligns himself with to his personal involvement with the Tiger Woods Foundation. He managed his public image exactly the same way he managed his golf game — methodical. Too bad the PR machine that built him up to epic proportions stalled this weekend.
There was one thing absolutely accurate in Tiger’s statement. He’s “only human” and “not perfect.” I’m still shocked by this admission.
