Tiger Woods: Master of His Domain?

The Masters golf tournament is a big draw for CBS and arguably the biggest of golf's majors.  This year, it has an added, uh, flavor since Tiger Woods announced he will make his return to golf at the PGA's most prestigious tournament.

In case you've been under a rock for the last few months, this will be the first time Woods has played a tournament since that disastrous November car crash outside his Florida home that set of a maelstrom that led to the disclosure of Tiger's multiple mistresses and a voracious sexual appetite that apparently knew no limits.

It seems like November and December were mainly news reports of the latest Tiger mistress to come forward, with occasional references to apparently minor holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas.  For a while, I thought I may have been the only person who hadn't slept with Tiger Woods.

And just as things had died down, Tiger announced he was returning to the Masters next month and gave two brief interviews - 11 minutes total - to ESPN and the Golf Channel.  I saw the ESPN interview, not because I wanted to, but because I was trying to watch SportsCenter one morning as I got dressed for work and the interview was aired, as the ESPN anchors said breathlessly, "in its entirety."  Running a five-minute clip in its entirety isn't exactly a groundbreaking use of TV time.  In fact, it happens countless times a day on TV, almost none of which involve Tiger Woods.

All of that aside, I found myself wondering why we as a society were making such a big deal over all the controversy and such in Tiger Woods' life.

Here's a secret:  He's just a golfer.

Woods doesn't cure people of their diseases.  He isn't in our schools every day teaching children how to read or do math.  He isn't volunteering in the Peace Corps making sure some of the poorest people on the globe have clean drinking water.  He isn't working dawn to dusk in Africa to make sure children don't die from diarrhea and infection because they didn't receive a vitamin A supplement that costs about $1.25 a day.  He isn't a lawyer pursuing justice all the way to the Supreme Court to make sure all children, regardless of race, have equal access to public schools.  He doesn't do any one of a million jobs that have a direct impact and make people's lives better.

So who cares about Tiger Woods' private life?

Who cares if he's a good husband and father?  Who cares if he disappointed his mother?  Who cares if this long-driving Lothario had more mistresses than Henry VIII?  Who cares if he got too far away from his Buddhism beliefs?  Who cares why he acted so recklessly?  Who cares at all about any of this?

Apparently, we do.  But we shouldn't.

Woods has been in the public spotlight since he appeared on TV as a toddler teeing up a golf ball on The Mike Douglas Show.  He's won nearly every thing he could win in the game of golf and collected nearly every accolade associated with the game.

But somehow we elevated him to godlike status because of his ability to put a little white ball in a small white cup on some of the finest manicured patches of grass in the world.  As if the ability to swing a three-iron better than anyone else before him magically transformed him into a person of good character who was worth emulating.

People young and old have admired athletes and adopted them as role models since the invention of sport.  But let's try to keep this in perspective.  There's nothing wrong with trying to model yourself after an athlete.  Plenty of young boys, myself included, wanted nothing more when they were growing up than to hit game-winning shots like Michael Jordan or throw touchdown passes like Joe Montana.  And plenty of girls have dreamed of scoring goals and winning soccer championships like Mia Hamm.

And even if you're just an occasional duffer, you would give just about anything to have Tiger's ability to seemingly exert total control over the golf ball while on the links.  In that sense, Tiger is a great role model, as far as the game of golf is concerned.  No one has worked harder to hone his amazing talent, and no one can top his competitive drive to win every time he takes to the course.

Let's remember that the reason any of us starting liking Tiger Woods was because he was a great golfer.  Nobody tuned in to watch him at the Masters at age 21 because they cared about Woods' political views or thoughts on marriage or philosophy on fatherhood.  Viewers watched because of his athletic ability.

So it's a little strange that we insisted on putting Tiger the golfer on a pedestal for the world to admire and copy, without really knowing what we were getting into.

But never forget, he's just a golfer - not a savior, not a messiah, not infallible, not the world's greatest husband - and, in the end, he's merely human.  Perhaps we should remember that before we rush to anoint the next athlete, singer or movie star as the next great role model to pattern our lives on.