The Destruction Of Tiger Woods, by Rosicky Jones

“Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, tho’ the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting.” ~ Laurence Sterne

Tiger Woods is a victim.  He is a victim of hypocritical critics hoping to bring him down to their level in an attempt to raise their meager worth.  Tiger’s critics are envious and vengeful.

The will to power is arguably the most powerful driving force in men.  The will to power usually manifests itself in achievement, ambition, or supreme dedication.  If we assume that power is finite, then “will” may not be enough.  “Destroying the powerful” is another trait that should be associated with the will to power and should sidle up real close to ambition..  The critics who hide behind their words are nothing more than pathetic mole people.  They’ve watched Tiger’s greatness with both admiration and contempt.

Some people claim that we build people up just to tear them down.  I’ll buy this assertion for the talentless, e.g. Nickelback, Paris Hilton, and Sarah Palin.  But we didn’t build Tiger up.  He built himself up and we hopped on board because we love greatness.  Then he did something that the majority of society finds deplorable.  This opened the door for the mole people to begin tearing down greatness for personal gain.  They assaulted Tiger to gain more readers, publicity, revenge, or footing on a moral high ground.

There is a difference between the vitriol of housewives and the vitriol of journalists.  Housewives are dumb… err, ignorant.  They don’t understand the world that athletes and the super-rich inhabit.  Most of society, men and women alike, are ignorant to this sexual utopia.  But the sports writers and journalists are not ignorant to the goings and comings (pun intended) of Tiger and his brethren.  Woman see an unfaithful man.  So their anger is valid.  That’s all they see: no context.  They empathize with the imagined pain Elin is going through (I say “imagined” because the marriage could have been open, who the fuck knows).  Sports writers know better.  Sports writers are around the rich and gifted all the time.  But Tiger was different to them, they were vengeful and jealous of him, and his infidelity gave these critics an opportunity to act on their objectionable vices.

“He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself” ~ Random Chinese Guy

One of the criticisms of Tiger is that “he controls the media.”  He micromanages all his appearances and all his interviews.  He controls everything Tiger related.  He controlled his pre-scandal image with an iron fist.  And he has been just as maniacal with the media post-scandal.  He is even waiting until the Masters to return because that tournament gives him the most control.

So fuckin’ what.

He is a meticulous micromanager.  He controls something that critics and journalists usually control.  They hate him for it.  And now that he slipped up they are making him pay.  They aren’t upset that he is so controlling, they are upset that they are not in control.

The memory has many different retention levels.  There is the subconscious level that some believe stores insignificant data – like what you wore the first day of freshman orientation or the name of the girl laying in bed with me.  Then there is habitual or mechanical memory.  My ability to recite any Tupac lyric is an example of this type.  Theoretically I can recite the lyrics to All Eyez on Me without consciousness of every specific preceding rap session.  Some memory experts don’t even believe this constitutes a memory – these memory snobs believe in the following.  That a memory only exists if I could, for example, recollect every single time and place I rapped  All Eyez on Me. This type of memory has the strongest ties to our emotions.  These types of memories elicit the strongest responses.  I remember the first three times I fucked Erin Weber because of the emotions I felt then, and now in nostalgia these emotions are very powerful – extreme elation.  I remember every single student-of-the-month award because each fueled my feelings of intellectual superiority, especially over Kevin Cho.  Where you at now Cho? But I digress.  These memories become ingrained on account of these emotions, not vice versa.  Abhorrent emotions are also tied to this type of memory.  The vengeance that sportswriters and journalists seek to carry out on Tiger is due to their feeling marginalized by Woods.  They remember specific events, places, and times that Tiger’s controlling behavior bothered them.  The fact that they remembered these occurrences and referenced them with such disdain is proof that they have held onto those feeling for a long time.  That is not the problem –we all have specific memories tied to unpleasant emotions that are just as strong as the pleasant ones.  But a normal person does not consciously go back to an event that diminished their self-worth.  These critics detested covering the man, according to their current reporting, yet they didn’t stop.  They held onto these emotions until now, when they could unleash their fury without being made into pariahs.

They chose to continue making their careers off his talents while at the same time waiting to gain some sort of redemption.  This disgusts me.  They were incessant in their coverage of Tiger, even though they felt ostracized by him.  They chose to memorize every perceived slight and mettlesome behavior for the day they could unleash their vitriol.

All the vengeance that spilled onto the pages of sports websites across the internet is disgusting.  Tiger understood how he would be covered if he allowed the media to control.  We all remember young Tiger making a silly off-color joke to a reporter, and the media storm that followed.  Every reporter put on an ugly sweater and went Bill Cosby on the guy.  Since then he decided he would run them.  The media outlets still clamored for his time.  And he divvied up himself how he saw fit, not how they saw fit.  This also fueled their jealousy.  Jealousy occurs between rivals – even when a rivalry doesn’t actually exist, but exists in the delusional mind of the jealous.  The mole people were competing with Tiger over…Tiger.  The media’s notion of mutual enmity disappeared over time only to be replaced with resentment.

“Envy assails the noblest:  the winds howl around the highest peaks.”  ~ Ovid

A.C. Green was more famous for his virginity than for his basketball ability.  Why? Because he was the exception.  Athletes can bang almost anything they want.  Fuck, half of New England’s hetero male population would get in bed with Tom Brady if he wanted.   Groupies are everywhere –basketball has “jersey chasers,” football has “helmet hoes,” hockey has “puck sluts,” even soccer players get the weird indie girls with a fetish for greasy foreigners.  The inception of organized sports also incepted organized whores.  Any sports journalist that spends a bit of time around pro-athletes will come to realize that they are not of our world.

I am not a real journalist; I am a piece-of-shit writer that got lucky enough to write for an amazing web site (there I said it, Paul Shirley, please stop punching me).  But even I know of athlete infidelity.  I know a woman that smushed two married Detroit Pistons.  Am I disgusted by them? Hell to the no, because this is the world they live in and because she was a smoke show.  This world is not secret, so why was Tiger brutally excoriated?  Jealousy.

When a 6’7″  NBAer ravenously takes down puss it is not that big of a deal.  Critics can’t relate.  Hoop stars are on another level of athleticism.  They are tall, sculpted, the coolest guys in the room, and they hang out with Jay Z.  Not Relatable.  Tiger is a nerd who happened to be amazing at golf.  Google 18-year-old Tiger and 18-year-old Lebron; no comparison.  Tiger was geeky like the journalists and the journalists liked that.  Very Relatable.  Revenge of the nerds and whatnot.

The fact that Tiger played golf instead of a real sport added to the envy.  Basketball and football are for the young.  But everyone can play golf.  Tiger was relatable because he played a sport that the journalists could still play.  They were jealous that he dominated a sport that usually dominates the player.  When he was just an awkward guy that crushed golf balls – no envy.  It only became different when the awkward guy began crushing groupies.  The critics couldn’t handle it.  He was not only better at “their” sport, he was also a sex god.  He dominated everything.  This same “no-reason hate” materializes in guys when we see a knockout draped over a complete doucher; remember how mad we were when the attractive version of Britney Spears began dating Federline?

Athletes fuck hot girls – as many as they want, whenever they want.  Tiger was no different.  But sports journalists saw him differently.  He was kind of like them, only he wasn’t.  He has more in common with Shaq than Albom.  The mole people wanted him for themselves, but he is not one of them.  He is better.

We are watching a story unfold in which the narrators are the antagonists.  The mole people have the pens and the perspective –but I am annoyed by them.  Tiger is painted in iniquity, by the self-appointed arbiters of morality – the mole people.  A real-life Separate Peace is unfolding before our eyes.  Tiger’s decisions placed him on an unstable branch, but the mole people shook the tree.  Finny was still better than Gene, shattered bones and all – incontrovertible.  And Tiger, shattered image and all, is still better than the mole people.

Tiger has ascended to an athletic Mount Olympus.  And we know from Greek mythology that gods cannot be killed.  They can only mythologically fade if people forget them.  But Tiger will  not soon be forgotten.  The mole people that attempt to destroy him will not be so fortunate.