US Masters: Tiger Woods needs more than just a pitied face to deserve success

Published on Saturday 10 April 2010 22:34

The world No 1 is snapping at the heels of the leaders but Paul Forsyth, for one, hopes that he falls short of the mark

THERE ARE many reasons not to like Nike's latest Tiger Woods commercial: the shameless opportunism with which they brought back his father from the grave, the willingness to exploit their client's fall from grace, but perhaps most of all, the implication that he is to be pitied. By setting his sad face against a bleak landscape, while the voice of Earl Woods asks what he has learned, they want us to feel sorry for him.

And they aren't the only ones. If eliciting sympathy isn't a key part of the masterplan to rehabilitate their disgraced player, Tiger's advisers are not about to discourage it. With every admission of failure on his part, and there have been plenty of them recently, comes the unspoken reminder that it hasn't been easy for him either.

Take, for example, his guilt about missing the first birthday of his son, Charlie, because Woods was undergoing treatment for sex addiction in a Mississippi clinic. Or his frustration that the world's media have not respected the privacy of his wife and family. For as real and raw as those regrets surely are, they also happen to be quite handy in the battle to win back hearts and minds.

If his return to competitive golf at the Masters is any guide, more than a few appear to have been won over, including some of the players whose efforts have been overshadowed for the last five months. "It's amazing how many hugs I've gotten from the guys," said Woods after his arrival at Augusta National last week. The galleries, too, have shown compassion. In the first round, when he held his breath for the reception, it wasn't just good, it was the best. "It was unbelievable, I mean all day. The people, I haven't heard them cheer this loud in all my years here."

Having spent the last few months fearing that he would be treated like a pariah, here he was, welcomed with open arms. That's partly because it's Augusta, and you can't do anything else at Augusta, if you want to be allowed back that is. And it's partly because it's Tiger, and well, he's a big deal, and the circus around him is fun to be a part of. Hell, let's be honest, golf wasn't the same without him was it?

But it's also as though he is, in some respects, a victim. That he is returning against all the odds, trying to pull off what would be a historic victory in his first event back. Just as he did with a broken leg in the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines. Just as Ben Hogan almost did after the car crash. If he wins, we will never hear the end of it: his character, focus, his strength in adversity.

Let's hope he doesn't. Sure, we should be able to separate the golfer from the man, and not allow our view of one to prejudice that of the other. Applauding his work on the golf course is not the same as reading about his latest conquest in the National Enquirer, and shouting: "Way to go Tiger."

But there is something not quite right about the idea of him pulling on the green jacket as though nothing had happened. As though the double life that deceived us all – and earned him millions of dollars into the bargain – was just another misfortune that he has somehow found the wherewithal to recover from. If chairman Billy Payne's statement on Wednesday is any indication, Augusta National aren't too excited by the prospect either.

This is not an injury he is returning from. It wasn't a car crash in which he tried, like Hogan, to protect his wife. It was one in which it became clear that he had betrayed her, and the children for whom he was supposed to be a role model. While plenty of his peers are guilty of the same marital infidelities, his crime was to trade on the deception. He was a fraud who took golf for a ride. Please, let's not be sorry for him.

If he wants forgiveness, the least he can do is earn it, not by winning a golf tournament, but by putting behind him the arrogance, the sense of entitlement and the contempt he had for the game and its followers. Or, as Payne put it: "His future will never again be measured only by his performance against par, but measured by the sincerity of his efforts to change."

So far there have been mixed messages. He is certainly smiling more, even signing autographs, but the Nike advertisement doesn't speak of a man who has rediscovered his moral compass. On the 14th hole on Thursday, when he yanked an approach long and left, his petulant reaction had room for none of the perspective he had promised beforehand.

Woods, to his credit, has admitted that winning majors is no longer the be-all and end-all, that personal redemption is more important. "It's not about championships," he said. "It's about how you live your life... I'm trying as hard as I can every day to get my life better and stronger, and if I win championships, along the way, so be it."

So there you have it. According to the man himself, the green jacket is an afterthought, a bonus in the grand scheme of things. Wouldn't it be better if somebody else wore it, somebody for whom it was more important? Woods doesn't deserve it. Not yet anyway.