Don’t get me wrong: Tiger Woods is indisputably a handsome man. He is, by all accounts, a nice guy who is humble about and deserving of the billions of dollars and hours of media attention he receives for his golfing prowess. But this past week, I’ve grown real sick of seeing his smiling face every time I turn on the TV, read the newspaper or log onto ESPN.com.
This is by no means a standard ninth-grade, “I want to be different and better than everybody else, so I’m going to stop listening to Green Day and pretend I hated them all the time.” This is something more. I don’t dislike Tiger Woods because of the tournaments he’s won, the advertisements he’s landed, the enormous amounts of money he’s earned or anything else he’s done. I dislike him for what he hasn’t done.
As far as I know, Tiger Woods has never guaranteed a victory. He’s never worn a mink coat on the sidelines. He’s never placed his putter between his legs and bulldanced around the green or even waved it around like a sword, a la Chi Chi Rodriguez. The future isn’t so bright, either. Tiger Woods will probably never refer to himself in the third person. I imagine he’ll never tear off his shirt in disgust or even in celebration. I’m sure he’ll have public love interests over the course of his career, but I’m betting it will never be one, or, for that matter, several, of the Laker Girls. Tiger Woods is boring.
Is it really his fault? I mean, golf itself is just horribly boring. It’s about time we started calling into question the relative rigor of any game that people can excel at in their mid ‘70s. NBC doesn’t cover shuffleboard, does it? I still haven’t seen a single game of bridge or cribbage on ESPN, and, last I checked, the World Horseshoes Championship isn’t slated for national broadcast. Then why golf? Golf involves no sweat, no tackling, no fighting, no yelling, no kicking dirt, no spitting, no crotch grabbing, no bleeding, no fans streaking across the field, no end-zone dances, no elbow bashes and no pizzazz. As far as I’m concerned, golf isn’t even really a sport at all. I’m not claiming that golfers can’t be good athletes, but I’m just saying that there’s little or no correlation between golfing skill and athletic ability. Golfing requires great skill, I admit, but so does software engineering, and they rarely broadcast that on the major networks.
The worst part about all the attention given to the most boring of sports is the attention it takes away from other, more worthwhile affairs. Have you ever caught a game of Australian Rules Football at 3 a.m. on Fox Sports? Christ, it ought to be called “Australian No-Rules Football.” Crazed, inbred Aussies breaking bones, losing teeth and tearing apart flesh, and also, apparently, competing in a game. Rugby, curling, arena football, cricket and the Ultimate Fighting Championship could all also stand more media attention. Indeed, I’ve recently made the conscious decision to dedicate my sports media efforts only to the sports that I deem worthwhile, and thus forever avoiding giving coverage to Tiger Woods and his most boring of pursuits.
Whoops.
