"What makes Tiger the greatest winner in all of sports is how hot he burns on the inside, and it his ferocious competitiveness that produces such riveting theater."
/Two interesting takes on Tiger's club-tossing appeared today, starting with Alan Shipnuck in his SI Mail Bag:
Obviously Tiger screwed up, but he didn't mean to tomahawk his club into the gallery, it just slipped out of his hand during a more conventional bit of pique. I think most of us would like to see Woods stop dropping f-bombs and slamming clubs – it's unbecoming and a little tacky. But you can't have it both ways. What makes Tiger the greatest winner in all of sports is how hot he burns on the inside, and it his ferocious competitiveness that produces such riveting theater. He's got his flaws, but Woods is a class act and we're all lucky to have him in our sport. (Imagine if Allen Iverson was the world's top golfer.) So I can live with Tiger's occasional lapses...
And Steve Elling in this week's Up and Down reminds us of Jonathan Kaye's wonderful antics and suggest that the PGA Tour VP's are probably sitting around trying to figure out how to deal with this.
This is the second time since September that Woods has gone volcanic with his driver. And yes, while the sanctimonious PGA Tour would not remotely offer any comment on Woods' actions in Oz on Saturday, an official did confirm that Woods is subject to penalties because he is a U.S. tour player, regardless of whether he was playing in a sanctioned PGA Tour event or not. Clearly, he's a repeat offender. Heck, he's a recidivist. The club throwing has got to stop. The penalty ought to be a six-figure fine, if not some time on the bench, and if the tour wants to correct his behavior, it ought to be publicly announced. But as far as any of us will ever know, they won't do a thing.