As IF Times

link Tiger Woods to Make Statement on Friday – WSJ.com.

Who cares? Ok, well that’s not true.  The real question is who really cares.  Most people clamor for their 15 minutes of fame: Tiger goes the other way and wants 15 minutes of obscurity.  The events that have come to light over the past few months surrounding Tiger’s life outside the links have more than fed people’s natural voyeuristic tendencies. People love success stories, but just as many love the crash and burn stories, if not more .  If this were not true, magazines such as The Enquirer, People and Us Weekly to name a few wouldn’t be in business.

Apart from Jen, Brad and Angelina’s permanent positions on the covers of those magazines, most stories have their limited shelf life and the paparazzi move on to the next big thing.  After the initial shock of seeing someone of Tiger’s stature being exposed for living  the kind of personal life most “celebrities” probably do, the  emerging sordid details are interesting only for those truly lacking their own lives.  Tiger’s your typical boy gets to be greatest golfer in the world, marries beautiful trophy wife, has 15 affairs story.  It happens all the time.  The fascinating uniqueness  in this case was the methodical yet reckless duplicity of his activities.  Is it really that gripping to hear what girl “a” said or what girl “b” did?  Only to their agents I suppose.

At this point, whether our hero is contrite and repentant is irrelevant.  His good guy star has already fallen irreparably and all there is for him now is to resume his golf career.  Despite the loss of Accenture as a sponsor, other corporations will line up to have him represent them.  Will Tiger care if he is tarnished in the eyes of his fans?  Likely not.  Golf is not naturally a team sport.  You strive by yourself to beat the competition, it is a selfish pursuit, but that’s the way it is.  Success in the game is somewhat ephemeral, so when the opportunity arises to distance yourself from others, you step on the gas, not let up to make a close match.  It is in Tiger’s nature to pursue wins on the course, the affection of fans is not a factor. 

Sadly, with all that’s happened, nothing that Tiger does or says from now on can be taken without some question of  honesty.  Whether through contrived speeches created for him by his management group desperate to reflate the franchise or interviews to media people, his words will always have the taint of insincerity.  You’d be wrong to think I blame this all on Tiger.  Certainly he had a role to play.  As culpable are his management team, his sponsors and the adoring media who extrapolated Tiger’s sporting achievements to real life heroism with the usual end game of commercial benefit.   Guilty as well are those in the public who bought into the fairy tale.  We all love our sports heros because we see them achieving things we aren’t capable of.  In the end…it’s only a game.

link Tiger Woods photographed outside Mississippi rehabilitation centre where he is reportedly being treated for sex addiction | Herald Sun.

Of course we don’t know exactly how this came about.  How was the decision made to identify Tiger’s “condition” as an affliction that needs treatment?  Are we to believe that:

a) Tiger recognizes that because of his fame, fortune, high powered friends and exalted status among athletes,  getting access to willing young women is a horrible burden of the business and is a bad thing

b) His wife says that the above is a bad thing

c) His sponsors say that it’s a bad thing especially if he gets caught

d) His mother gave him the ol’ ear twist

e) His current girlfriend thinks he should go so she can be exclusive

f) His business managers told him to go in order to salvage whatever status he may have as a sympathetic character and to pave his way back to the tour so they can all make money again.  It certainly can’t be Tiger’s fault if it’s a disease.  This horrific ailment which co-incidently only afflicts young men in the sports and entertainment industry with lots of fame and available money, must be appropriately treated.

Of course there is precedence for this.  David Duchovny, Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen all had to live through this horror before being admitted to treatment.  Sadly we have seen the tragic consequences of this affliction if allowed to go untreated.  Apparently,  after numerous serial sexual encounters, blood stops circulating properly in the brain and judgement suffers.  In severe cases like Warren Beatty and Wilt Chamberlain, the victim loses the ability to count.

People who may fall victim to this malaise are fortunate to have facilities established to properly treat them.  Naturally, there can be no temptations of any sort at the facility that can cause the patient stress. 

As I understand it, there are two schools of thought on how to treat sex addiction.  The first is from the abstinence and avoidance path.  In this program, the facility is staffed by mainly hirsute males and the patient is exposed to nothing at all which has any hint of women.  They are allowed to watch entertainment including sports and news and certain TV shows like The View and Joy Behar.  As part of the therapy, men’s magazines are available, but all have been rigged to have full facial shots of Rosie O’Donnell and an embedded chip that shrieks “I WANT YOU NOW!” when opened.

The other school of thought is to overstimulate the patient with images and videos of comely gals every minute of the day from wake up to bedding down at night.  They are forced to watch videos of The Girls Next Door in a constant loop until they cannot bear to hear them say one more inane thing.  By the time 6 weeks are over, they will avoid busty blondes like they were E-Coli sandwiches.

We don’t know which method Tiger will endure, but we all pray he can recover.