Looks like the sports press, especially the people on the golf beat, haven’t learned a thing about how to cover the Tiger Woods story. They couldn’t bring themselves to say a bad word about the golf tour’s biggest star before Woods’s extra-marital affairs became public. And they don’t seem to have been fazed at all by the fact that TMZ and tabs, for heaven’s sake, scooped them on that story.
Now, they’re all prepared to welcome Woods back, no questions asked. Few have wondered why the disgraced golfer decided to re-enter the golf world via the Masters Tournament, only the largest golf stage on the planet. Woods rejected the idea to re-enter during a smaller tournament so he could do some prep, presumably because a smaller tournament isn’t big enough for his big ego.
The Arnold Palmer Invitation would have been a smarter start. Palmer, classy as always, expressed his disappointment that Woods decide not to enter the one non-major he never usually misses.
Don’t expect the PGA players to comment. They know that it’s thanks to Woods’s star quality that the tournament purses have grown. But you’d think a few sports writers would grouse just a bit. It’s been fun to observe the lengths to which sports hacks will go to defend Woods’s decision. A story in the Boston Herald suggests that Bay Hill, the club where Palmer’s tourney is played, wouldn’t have been able to deal with the security issues that would have deepened with Woods’s presence. Masters organizers, they say, really know what they’re doing when it comes to that stuff.
Pretty weak, I say. Palmer’s tournament at Bay Hill automatically restricts the number of fans on the course. And one side of the course is flanked by water, which should make it easier to secure, not harder.
It’s sheer hubris for Woods to think that he doesn’t need a tune-up on a smaller stage. True, it wouldn’t have mattered where Woods re-appeared on the golf scene – it would have been a zoo. Either way, it won’t matter who’s on the leader board – they won’t get much attention compared to Woods.
But you get the feeling it’s Woods’s ego and nothing else that fed his decision to highjack the Masters, the most prestigious tournament on the PGA tour. Guess he didn’t learn much from his fall from grace, either.[rssbreak]
