| | |  Editorials | Opinions | December 2009 
Tiger Woods & Keeping Score In Life
 Andrew Moore - AskMen.com
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December 01, 2009
What the hell is going on with Tiger Woods? Recently, the world’s most famous golfer has been getting the TMZ treatment due to a bizarre chain of events that has yet to be sorted out. According to reports, Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant early Friday morning.
His airbag didn’t deploy, so he wasn’t driving very fast; however, he somehow sustained injuries to his face. Also, at some point, his wife, Elin Nordegren, allegedly smashed one of his windows with - what else? - a golf club.
The chain of causation is a bit hazy. It’s possible that Tiger Woods was out for a drive at 2:30 in the morning (for some reason). He accidentally hit a fire hydrant, hurt himself, and his wife smashed a window to help get him out of the car.
A domestic dispute gone public
Other sources say that the injuries to Woods’ face were the result of a domestic dispute. Some have suggested that Woods and his wife were fighting about a rumored affair. Woods tried to escape the argument by leaving the house, at which point his wife pursued him, striking his vehicle with a golf club, possibly distracting Woods and causing him to crash the vehicle.
This second account, if true, would be a shock to Tiger Woods’ many fans. Is it possible that Woods has wrecked his marriage and damaged his reputation, even risked his physical well-being, for a shot at some strange beauty? If so, what the hell was he thinking? Tiger Woods has yachts bigger than any house most of us will ever own. His wife is a Swedish model. He has a beautiful family. And, instead of going to work every day like the rest of us, he plays golf.
No, that’s not true. He doesn’t just play golf. Tiger Woods owns golf. He is a historically dominant athlete who has achieved unparalleled success. To top it off, he’s super-famous and mega-rich. In many ways, Tiger Woods lives the dream. He has the kind of life we all aspire to live. Come to think of it, maybe that’s how he got himself into trouble in the first place.
Too driven to win
Maybe it’s not so unthinkable that a man would risk his marriage and his reputation for some alone-time with Rachel Uchitel, the woman whom Woods was allegedly seeing on the side. She’s drop-dead gorgeous after all, and men do stupid things for beautiful women every day. However, there may be more to it than that. Could the same thing that makes a man a great athlete, a smart businessman and a wildly successful individual also drive him to cheat on his wife?
What do we admire about Tiger Woods? Isn’t it his focus, his intensity and his seemingly indomitable will to win? We admire Woods because he’s insatiable, and we think it’s good to be insatiable. We admire the man who refuses to settle, the guy who leaves his average job for a higher-paying one. We want to be the guy who sells his house and moves into a bigger house, in a better neighborhood. To some degree, we even applaud the old guy who trades in his wife for a younger, hotter model. We love Woods because he’s done what we’ve all been advised to do. He succeeds, seemingly at everything. He wins and then he goes out and wins some more.
Might it be the case that a man who is always looking toward the next victory is also the kind of man who would step out on his wife for the challenge, the unconquered territory of a new temptation? It’s a troubling thought. Maybe the things we admire about Tiger Woods we shouldn’t admire so much.
Sports and life follow different rules
Unlike in golf, in life there isn’t always another tournament, another title and another record. The metrics we use to measure success in sports don’t apply to the rest of your life. In life, there are no points systems or rankings. No one is keeping score. The measure of a good life isn’t expensive stuff or the number of women you’ve slept with. The only thing that matters, always, is happiness. Some happy people have a lot of money, some happy people don’t. Some guys are happy being single, others are happy being married. How you get there doesn’t matter. All that matters is, once you get there, stop. Stop chasing things and enjoy your life. |
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