It was Reckoning Day for Tiger Woods. And the world’s greatest golfer and husband-from- hell was painfully bloated. He looked glum, sour and fiercely defensive. He seemed angry just to be alive.
It was the 13½ grueling minutes the world’s been waiting to hear. And in that time, Tiger squandered whatever good will he had left in his golf bag. He proved as evasive and shifty as a con man. And arrogant as a multi-gazillionaire forced out of bed against his will.
Mostly, Tiger was annoyed.
He stood before the cameras, the nation, the world and Buddha, facing friends, fans, enemies, whores and, especially, his wavering meal-ticket sponsors, for a sham “press conference” aimed at saving what’s left of his career. The performance was as cheap as the loose women he preferred, even as it lacked a porn star’s moral fiber.
Tiger poked his head out of the rabbit hole he dug nearly three months ago to face a hand-selected group of toadies, reporters and his mother, who looked from ceiling to floor to avoid her son’s face, wearing an expression that suggested a lioness ready to rip the throat from her young. Later, she defended him ferociously.
As he spoke, Tiger welled up with emotion. The first hint of tears came when he mentioned his wife, Elin, who was nowhere to be found. But he really almost lost it when he came to the point of this exercise:
“My behavior has caused considerable worry to my business partners,” he sniffled. I’ll say.
Then, Tiger turned on the audience with a bottled-up vengeance. He ginned up his anger, but only came off as cranky and weird.
“There’s one issue I really want to discuss,” he started, and I thought he was ready, finally, to confess what happened after Thanksgiving. The night his world went unglued and his wife went bananas. Guess again.
With a fury, Tiger denied that wife Elin “hurt or attacked” him on that fateful night. But he failed to say whether the ex-model to whom he’s wed wielded a golf club to knock some sense into his thick head.
“Elin deserves praise, not blame,” he commanded. But who on this planet has ever “blamed” her for anything?
His words were carefully calibrated, as if through a publicist, a lawyer. Or an exorcist. He was furious that anyone could think his fair wife committed “domestic violence” — a phrase he doubtlessly chose because cops never filed a report suggesting any such thing. But Tiger did not bother to explain what happened outside his home on the night in question, as he crashed his SUV into inanimate objects, and lay unconscious on the side of the road.
And why did he dodge the authorities?
“I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated,” he declared on his own terms. Duh.
And for some reason known only to the self-described Buddhist, he denied that he ever used performance-enhancing drugs. As if anyone cared on this day.
His downcast gaze wavered just once. Tiger said, “It’s hard to admit I need help,” and his eyes darted suddenly, and strangely, to the side. It was as if his body were signaling that he still doesn’t fully believe there’s anything wrong with a flesh-and-blood athlete who strays. And strays. And strays.
He put reporters on notice to leave his family alone, something he should have thought about long ago. But he said nothing about his developing jowls. The result of binge eating? Or plastic surgery?
So now Tiger will be more careful. He’ll treat his wife with more respect, strive to be a better father to his children, son to his mom. And, of course, a better spokesmodel to his suffering sponsors.
But Tiger proved one thing on this day: Don’t give this character too much rope, Elin.
He’s not tamed, yet.