Breaking 90

We’ve seen this before haven’t we?

Athlete gets hand caught in cookie jar, issues denial, condemning evidence surfaces, athlete issues apology, vows to correct offending behavior in private, never speaks of it again, and six months later all is either forgotten and forgiven. The never-ending 24-hour news cycle moves on to its next victim.

Should be the same for Tiger, right?

We could see this pattern with Tiger, with his brand relatively intact after this mess settles (some are even gambling on this fact), but it’s probably not the slam dunk many peole think it is because of one thing – likeability. Likeability plays a huge role in which athletes we cheer for and against, and overnight, Tiger went from Ben Hogan to Jon Gosselin. All of his accomplishments and actions, past and present, are now stained with a sleaziness that might never fully come off.

Knowing what you know now, isn’t there at least a part of you that wishes Rocco Mediate won that playoff at the Torey Pines? The next time Sam and Charlie run onto the 18th green after their daddy wins a tournament, you’re not going to wonder, even if it’s just for a second, if that moment’s real or staged?

A lot of people claim they watch Tiger because they love to watch him play golf. Really? If Jon Gosselin could hit the ball like Happy Gilmore, you think those same people would line up to pay and watch him play? To quote Jules from Pulp Fiction; “Sewer rate may taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know ’cause I wouldn’t eat the filthy m*therf*cker”.

Of course you can argue that we’ve seen this before with, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and SpyGate and that in those cases, the principals largely came out unscathed. Unfortunately, this is golf we’re talking about, and not team sports where you have the luxury to hate a player, but love the uniform he’s wearing. You can’t do that where the logo and the man are the same thing.

The other problem with Tiger’s situation is that he competes in a sport where the mythology is so incompatible with his behavior. Baseball, football, boxing, these sports and their players have much more colorful histories than golf, which at some level is still firmly rooted in honor and integrity. How is the golf community going to react now that its best player has shown a stunning lack of both?

This brings us to the biggest irony of the debacle of the last few days, which is that Tiger could come out of this a lot better than the game of golf, or at least pro golf. Think about it – we all know Tiger is going to take a hit in terms of brand and number of fans that follow him. No matter what the magnitude of that hit is, he is so well off financially and his game is so strong, he will be able to carry on.

However, the PGA might not be so lucky. The tour is overly dependent on Tiger for attendance and tv ratings; without a serious challenger to him in game or marketability, how many of Tiger’s fans can the PGA afford to lose before purses, attendance, ratings, and revenue start to drop?