The Trouble with Tiger

By Rick Eggleston
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

Golf’s Golden Boy sure lost his luster in a hurry, but cheating on your wife and getting caught will do that to you, even if your name is Tiger Woods. Who knew? What is it about possesing incredible athletic ability and fame that makes people like Woods act so foolishly?

Admitting yesterday to “transgressions” stemming from an affair with a Los Angeles cocktail waitress (and supposedly two other women) Woods became the latest in a recent string of super-athletes whose private lives are riddled with indiscretion and deceit. Baseball’s Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were this past summer’s sporting scandals involving steroid use, then this fall tennis’ Andre Agassi let it all hang out in his tell-all book about his drug abuse and fake hair. Now we head toward winter with Tiger’s tale of woe, and the latest athlete to have gone wild.

So who’s to blame? Nosy neighbors? Prying media? The game? Answer: None of the above. The blame falls squarely on the man himself as a result of the decisions he makes, and Tiger chose to dabble in the hazard of infidelity knowing full-well it could all come back to haunt him someday.

In this case, an otherwise mundane fender-bender on a private road got the media machine moving, foremost because it involved a world-class athlete such as Woods. Naturally, people (the media) started asking questions about what happened and it didn’t take long for things to go from bad to worse — a seemingly simple story about front-end damage to Woods' Escalade led to more questions than answers.

So now what for Tiger? Time will tell, of course, and winning a few more tournaments will surely help. Meantime, it’s apparent there's a lot of healing that needs to go on in the Woods’ household.

Charles Barkley said it best: Athletes are not role models.