TIGER Woods has broken his silence and has announced to the world that he will be taking an “indefinite break” from golf. Not only will it be a hiatus for Woods, his absence will also create a vacuum in the golfing world because no one can hit a golf ball better than this awesome player.
I say this as someone who has watched him up close in action: His ability to hit incredible shots, his towering presence on the field, the way he walks on the course – truly amazing experience to watch this great player perform on the golf course.
To top it all, Woods won this tournament (The Dubai Desert Classic in Feb 2008) by sinking a 30-foot putt on the final green at the superb course called Majlis. During the four days, Woods came to the press box twice to talk to mediapersons. His answers were succinct, his reasoning logical, in short his entire personality was as close to flawless as can be. At the Dubai Desert Classic last year, Woods could hardly put a foot wrong.
At that time, there was a close race going on between Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama for the US President’s nomination and someone at the PC asked Woods what it will mean for him personally if Obama were to become the president. He simply said would not mean much and he would only like to talk about his golf and leave aside extraneous issues(this one was an extraneous issue for Woods, he just wanted to concentrate on his golf).
Watching the Tiger in Dubai.
As it now transpires, like his putting, Woods is equally adept at philandering as well. So, do his escapades make him a lesser golfer in my eyes? (not that it matters to Woods what my eyes say). Lesser golfer? No way. I will still pay to watch him play.
For me it simply means that like his insatiable hunger for golf, Woods also has an insatiable libido. His peccadilloes would not have caused such a storm if Woods had been a bachelor (because the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lewis Hamilton and Yuvraj Singh are all changing girlfriends all the time – almost incessantly). But the turn of events have caused such a furore because Woods is a family man and undoubtedly he has let his family down with his infidelity and transgressions.
Even in committing these indiscretions, Woods does not stand alone. Great players like Woods have done it before and perhaps will continue doing it in times to come. There is place for forgiveness. He can redeem himself – if not entirely- at least partly and return to the course, because that’s where he belongs. The golfing world will be the poorer without him.
When in full flow, there was hardly a better sight in world cricket, than Mohd Azharuddin unleashing his leg-side shots. His brush with match-fixing reduced his aura in the world’s eyes but once again he is back in business winning elections and people’s mandates and all that…
South African cricketers still regard Hansie Cronje as the greatest player that they had seen for very long time. The likes of Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis still maintain that they all learnt a lot from Cronje and had he not been killed in a plane crash, even Cronje, in due course, would have been able to redeem himself.
Shane Warne’s indiscretions meant that he never got Australia’s captaincy but that did not make him a lesser spinner in any way. With or without his indiscretions, Warne was a great player to watch on the cricketing field. Fate has other ways to redeem such players. Warne captained a nondescript Rajasthan Royals to title victory in the inaugural IPL and young players from that team swear that a pep talk from Warne was enough to galvanize them on the field. On the pitch, he could get them to do things they never imagined they had it in them to do.
So, Woods still has a chance. He can go away for a while and marketing men and TV companies will keep ruing his absence from the scene. But for the sake of golf, he must come back.
He is still the best golfer. Only he has forfeited his right to be a role model. That will be the price he will have to pay.
Dads around the world will still want their sons to drive the ball long and hard in the middle of the fairway like Tiger Woods. Only they will not want their sons’ wives to be chasing them around with three-wood clubs because of having a dozen mistresses in the closet.
