Tiger Woods and the Rumor Mill

If there's one thing people like more than idolizing a celebrity, it's tearing them down once they've put them on their pedestal.  The latest (and most unlikely) hero to be put to the grinder is the great golf phenomenon that is Tiger Woods.

Tiger Woods is such a private celebrity that you rarely hear anything about his personal life.  The only time he usually makes news is when he wins a golf tournament, or is in a golf tournament, or has a kid.  But other times, he remains out of the news.  I like that about him.  He stays out of the limelight except on the course. 

I like Tiger Woods, in general.  I think he's inspirational, hard-working, and a master of his craft.  I have always admired him, and if I watched golf at all, it was only for him.  He made the sport actually exciting for me.  He's the only reason I will watch it. 

Years ago, I remember waking up in the early morning hours to some TV program where Tiger was saying that he always makes goals, even ones he doesn't think he'll reach right then.  His theory was that if you have lofty goals, you'll try harder just to reach them, and succeed at least in some of them.  When I heard that, I thought, "Wow, Tiger Woods has goals."  It never occurred to me that Tiger set goals to win all those tournaments.  I suppose I never really thought how he did it, just that he entered the tournament and hoped to win.  But that he made it his goal to win, that impressed me, and it inspired me to have my own goals to reach.  It was a turning point for me, and  I adored Tiger even more for that bit of wisdom. 

That's why for me, it's so shocking to see the headlines on both Yahoo! and MSN about Tiger Woods' accident this past holiday weekend.  They're calling it a PR Nightmare, with people demanding Tiger tell the public the truth about what happened.  It's the biggest news on Twitter and Facebook.  This type of rumor-mongering just solidifies my disdain for social media.  For one thing, how many people commenting on Tiger Woods ever really watched him play?  All they know is that he's a celebrity, and he had an accident, and somehow they turn it into a domestic abuse case.  I'm not going to lie, I myself visited TMZ for stories about the incident.  And when they reported their version of a domestic squabble escalating to violence, I found it plausible.  That certainly happens more often than say, a wife breaking the back windshield of her husband's SUV to pull him out to safety.  And sadly, I believed the more plausible story. 

But I blame the media for that because they gave out just enough information to pique my interest.  If they had just said Tiger Woods had been in a minor car accident, but was now doing ok, I would have been happy with that.  But they also had to report that his wife, Elin, smashed the back windshield of his SUV to save him.  That's when I had to go to TMZ to learn more details of this heroic deed.  But that's not what I heard from TMZ. 

When Tiger released his statement, I realized that I was going off the deep end believing these wild accusations.  I had no proof of what TMZ claimed, just anonymous sources citing stuff for money.  It was just pure speculation.  And that's when I realized, perhaps things aren't what they seem, but it's not for me to worry.  It's Tiger's life, his personal life.  As Jason Whitlock said, he didn't run over a puppy.  He didn't kill anyone, or hurt anyone, but himself.  He was the only one wounded in this whole affair and people are turning on him.  It's so crazy the amount of rampant speculation going on about this incident.  If I were Tiger, it would make me hate people, and their insatiable desire to know everything about his life.

It's rather disheartening for me because whenever anyone disparages the media, I take the media's side, in that they are just reporting what is interesting.  It's true of course, but interesting.  In this case, I can see why people have such a disdain for the media.  As Whitlock says, the media are sensationalizing this incident to make money.  And it's true.  That's how they make their money.  Because people will only pay attention to the sensational, not the commonplace.  It's like what they do with Barack Obama.  They build him up, then they tear him down.  And when he's down, they'll figure out where to go from there. 

Some bloggers are saying that Tiger owes us the truth, and an apology if necessary.  We, after all, should know everything about his life - that is entertaining, of course, because it somehow affects our lives in some way.  I find that ridiculous.  In the end, he didn't hurt anyone, just himself, and some property, which he can certainly pay to get fixed.  The only thing Tiger owes us is great golf - and I'm not even sure he owes us that.