Why I'm Pulling For Tiger

It is my favorite week on the golf calendar - Masters Week. Yes, the tournament takes itself far too seriously. Yes, the "tradition unlike any other" stuff gets old. Yes, it is embarrassing to support a course that has fought so hard to keep women out (and has thus far been successful).

There are some thorns on this rose, but the flower is just so beautiful - Amen Corner, the colors of the azaleas, Rae's Creek, the Green Jacket, etc. It is the one major tournament where the course never changes and it never gets old. It has wonderful history (Jack in '86, Mize chipping in, Norman's collapse, Tiger's chip-in and Lefty's remarkable shot behind the tree last year plus winning while his wife's battles cancer) and makes for wonderful television.

This year's tournament has a number of great storylines (six players fighting to be the world's #1 ranked player, Phil coming off a win in Houston, the run of wins by young golfers this year), but the most interesting one involves Tiger Woods. No player has dominated Augusta like Tiger (literally - he won by 12 shots in 1997 and he has four green jackets), but he has not been the same player since the knee injury and then the crash/adultery/divorce/media firestorm that followed.

His off-the-course problems have over-shadowed his on-the-course problems. His putting has been terrible this year. His new swing is still a work in progress. His new coach, Sean Foley, has him swinging the club flatter as well as incorporating some elements of the stack & tilt (weight stays on the left side - you can read a good entry about the swing and why it is a mistake here). Whether it is a mistake or not (it is impossible to know whether the knee injury required a new swing or if Tiger tweaked a swing that was not broken) will be determined by the results of the next couple of years.

I am openly rooting for good results right now. For me, and for most casual as well as hardcore golf fans, the game is better when Tiger is good. I am ready for Tiger to dominate again. I want courses to Tiger-proof their designs. I want to watch players shoot in the 80s when they are paired with him. I want moments like the chip-in or the putt against Bob May or the Tiger Slam to return.

But what about the adultery? The crappy apology? This is where I don't know if I'm with the majority or not, but I'm over it. There came a point somewhere between the voice mail to the girl from Tool Academy and the awful public apology where I started feeling sorry for Tiger a little bit. The guy screwed up - big time. But the price he was paying for it...I cannot remember ever seeing a person so publicly humiliated as Tiger was. Bill Clinton didn't get the daily torture Woods got for his infidelities. I'm not trying to justify or defend his behaviors, but there did come a point where I felt bad for him.

Heck, I will defend him a little bit. The guy had women following him around the course looking for one thing and it wasn't an autograph. He was raised doing little besides hitting golf balls (not a great way to meet girls), has a dorky personality (not a great way to get girls), and then...BOOM. Billionaire. Attractive. Desirable. How is a guy supposed to handle that kind of transition - from dud to stud seemingly overnight?

(Okay, you don't handle it the way Tiger did, but my point is that it would not have been easy for anyone).

And while I have never cheated on my wife and don't intend to, I have not turned anybody down. Women are not throwing themselves at me on a daily basis. If Tiger had been in the Garden of Eden, the tree would have been pelting him with apples like in The Wizard of Oz. The fact that he wasn't strong enough to resist all that temptation is sad, but not surprising and not worthy of the humiliation he endured.

So I am ready for the rebirth. And I think more people feel the way I do today than did last year when he returned to Augusta (and shot -11 after not playing all spring). I'll be pulling for him this weekend to capture his 15th major championship, his fifth Green Jacket and hopefully his golf mojo once again.