(AFP/Getty Images)
Tiger Woods is a great golfer, though something less than a great man. Yesterday, he admitted as much.
“I am not without faults,” he said — an obvious reference to allegations of extramarital affairs that surfaced after a bizarre early-morning auto accident last week. “And I am far short of perfect.”
Well, aren’t we all.
Woods has thrilled golfing fans with his on-the-course prowess for more than a decade — and he’s inspired legions of youngsters to take up the game.
And he wouldn’t be the only married man in the public eye to be caught in infidelity recently.
But Woods is somewhat singular in one respect: His confessional certainly lacked the narcissistic self-indulgence exhibited by the likes of, say, politicians John Edwards and Mark Sanford.
In a written statement, he offered merely his “profound apology” to his fans — and said that, though he would “strive to be a better person,” his regrets about his personal failings would be shared with his family alone.
Good for him.
It is, however, a little more difficult to sympathize with his complaints about being deprived of his “privacy” following the accident.
Woods, after all, has parlayed his athletic skills into hundreds of millions of dollars in commercial endorsements. He is, in fact, ubiquitous on billboards and the airwaves.
If he really wanted privacy, he should’ve kept to the links.
Actions have consequences — especially for those who place themselves in the public eye.
Woods faced up to his transgressions like a man.
The rest of it goes with the territory, too.