More Tiger Statement-Reading Reviews

I'm mixing Tiger and media performance reviews here, just to keep you on your toes.

Sally Jenkins says Tiger said all the right things, but, "he's always said all the right things, and the words were hollow then, so what reason do I have to believe them now?"

Sorry, but I didn't buy it. The public Tiger Woods has always been artificial, but never has he seemed more waxen than in his so-called public apology. Here's the problem: Woods and his handlers staged a fake news conference to apologize for being fake.

To these ears, it was stilted and rehearsed to the point of insincerity. The pauses and the meaningful gazes into the camera were so cringingly long you began to suspect his script read, "lengthy pause for meaningful gaze into camera." Woods is no doubt genuinely contrite for cheating on his wife, but his 13 1/2 -minute speech before a controlled audience came off like an obligatory gated checkpoint that he clocked through on his way back to the golf course.

Jim White in the Telegraph:

Stiff, staccato, lumpen, he appeared to be a man speaking under duress. Indeed in his formal buttoned-up collar but no tie, he had the sartorial arrangement of a hostage, hastily dressed for a video ransom demand. Though in truth most hostages look more relaxed than this.

John Hopkins was also not impressed:

Overall, this was far from a convincing performance and one wonders what the players whom he once dominated will have made of it. They might have been impressed by his honesty, but they can hardly have had the respect they once had for him reinforced. His delivery was wooden but he can hardly be blamed for that. He is a golfer not an actor. The obviously scripted theatrical gestures that he interposed from time to time were inept, unnecessary and exaggerated.

Gene Wojciechowski at ESPN.com writes:

To the people ripping Woods for his Friday mea culpa, let me get this straight: Woods stepped into the planet's largest confessional booth, stared into a television camera, humbled himself to the size of a ball marker, admitted his marital infidelity, apologized repeatedly, begged for a second chance, did all of this as his mother sat a flagstick away and that's still not enough?

Sure, it was staged. What, you expected a pay-per-view event where Woods would do a PowerPoint presentation on how many women not-named-Elin he slept with?

And if you turn your attention to pie chart graphic 11-A, you'll see a breakdown of cities and countries where I cheated on my wife.

Josh Levin at Slate, writes:

I'm not sure, though, about how he'll manage the rest of his life. No matter how much he pleads, the tabloids will never leave Woods alone, nor will his hagiographers continue to spit-shine his halo. Sure, Tiger Woods can zone out on the golf course. But can he really dodge questions for the rest of his life?

Stephen Adams in the Telegraph on the event choreography:

Tiger Woods had bought a new shirt. But, rather like a schoolboy on his first day of term, it appeared to be at least one collar size too large.

The starch-stiff collar appeared to swamp his shrunk neck.

Was this a detail overlooked by his handlers? Or did they mean it to be too large, calculated to lend him a look of vulnerability?

A vulnerability which might appeal to the kind of middle-aged women who were hand-picked to sit in the front row of his rather awkward-looking audience at the TPC Sawgrass Club House at Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida?

And that, perhaps, was the trouble with Tiger Woods' marathon 'mea culpa'. Certainly, he said sorry. In fact he kept on saying sorry. He wouldn't stop. As the numerous television and radio commentators said afterwards, he seemed sincere.

But a small voice kept asking if every word and every gesture had been arranged, down to the smallest detail.

James Lawton in the Independent:

His more obdurate critics claimed afterwards that he should have invited questions and that his decision to face the world on a day which would distract attention from a golf tournament sponsored by the company who first dropped him in the wake of the revelation, was an act of petty malice.

They said that beneath the veneer of repentance it was the same old Tiger, arrogant, self-obsessed and still jealous of all his old status and privileges.

Yet what, you had to wonder, would questions have elicited, beyond the guilt and sense of grievous responsibility for behaviour destructive to all those around him as well as himself that he had expressed so emotionally?

Tom English in Scotland On Sunday:

SO MANY words, so much analysis. Psychologists and psychics; mind-readers and mind-benders; body language experts and a guy who claims he knows the truth of any statement depending on the eyes of the person making it. A bluffers' convention. A chancers' paradise.

At the time of writing Uri Geller hadn't said anything, which is remarkable. He's probably on a speaking tour, rubbing spoons and hypnotising students in distant Uri-land. Once he's done, he might want to get a piece of the Tiger action – everybody else in his crazy milieu has.

Hank Gola in the New York Daily News, on the GWAA aspect to Friday's event:

Likewise, the GWAA had nothing to gain from being at Friday's staged event. It was standard operating procedure for Team Tiger, more of the same control-freak approach, just like those obviously staged first pictures of Woods out jogging earlier this week. And precisely because of that, no one knows if we can believe what he said Friday's. On the one hand, it must have been terribly difficult for him to come clean with his mother sitting 15 feet in front of him in the front row. But how much of it was rehearsed and choreographed? Only by asking questions could we truly discover the answer.

As one of 19 "yes" voters behind the boycott, I still think we did the right thing, making a stand now so that further restrictions will not be put on us later. It seems none of the 18 other "yes" votes had a change of opinion, either.

John Huggan in Scotland On Sunday:

Judged solely on Friday's performance, Woods appears some way from inviting any of the media round to his place for a cozy chat by the fireside. Just about the only parts of his generally robotic speech that rang completely true for this observer were those where he went on the attack, lambasting the media for its treatment of his wife and children. That was the real Woods, the snarling Tiger we have become used to over the last 15 years.

John Gonzalez in the Philadelphia Inquirer on the post-statement coverage, courtesy of reader Steven T:

The reaction to Tiger's news conference was equally nauseating as everyone you can imagine jockeyed for a little camera time. Nick Faldo thought Tiger offered a "complete apology" while Ernie Els scoffed and called it "self-serving."

NBC Sports analyst Jimmy Roberts worried about the "integrity of the game" because "golf is the only sport where you call penalties on yourself . . . There are many who feel, and I'm talking about the players, that golf has taken a hit because of this."

ESPN.com scribe Rick Reilly implored Tiger to fire his support team, his caddy and repent to America's one true and all-powerful deity: Oprah. Then Reilly served the golfer some free advice about when to return to the links. "He should take six months off if he wants to fix his marriage," Reilly said. "If there's no chance to fix his marriage, then go play golf."

Reilly doesn't just make observations or write columns, folks. He mends broken hearts. Putting the gross hypocrisy aside - Tiger is flawed, but his many critics are pious and walk with God and know exactly how Woods should proceed - the look-at-me responses to the Woods news conference were so egregious and personal (as though Tiger had wronged the entire world instead of just his wife) that it felt like a sketch comedy scripted by Tina Fey and the 30 Rock writers.

John Paul Newport in the Wall Street Journal:

From the start, he stumbled and slurred his words. Even though Mr. Woods is said to have labored over his prepared remarks himself, they clearly arose from a different source than the polished repertoire of stock responses he normally deploys at news conferences. Formerly, the main purpose of his public utterances seemed to be to deflect attention from the inner man. Friday, for the first time, his main purpose—however awkward it seemed at times—was to talk about what he has been going through personally, off the course.

The guy was struggling. In golf terms, he was not even close to being "in the moment."

James Corrigan writing for The Independent:

As sporting commentators across the globe take leave from their stations to become behavioural experts, the one question with which sport should remain obsessed went bafflingly under-examined. When will Tiger Woods return? On Friday he gave no answer and perhaps that is why the focus has squared on the frankly irrelevant argument of whether he is really sorry or not. Yet Woods did give some indication of the vagueness of his schedule. "I do plan to return to golf one day – I just don't know when that day will be," he said.

Bob Raissman in the New York Daily News:

Now, a very large segment of the media is like the women Tiger was sleeping with. It only cares about access.

There was, however, one prominent group of reporters that still has respect for itself and the profession: The Golf Writers Association of America. These  people came out of this scripted fiasco with their dignity intact. The association was offered six spots in Tiger's den but overwhelmingly voted to boycott the event.
"To limit the ability of journalists to attend, listen, see and question Woods goes against the grain of everything we believe," said G.W.A.A. president Vartan Kupelian.

The association, whose members cover the game, drew a line in the sandtrap. They don't tell Woods what club to use. He shouldn't tell them how to do their jobs.

What's next? When Woods returns to the Tour will he ask for an advanced list of post-round questions? Why not? He already knows most of the media will acquiesce to his demands in return for the most limited kind of access.

And finally, Bob Smiley says the whole thing "felt like some weird Scientology funeral."

But I'll miss the old Tiger. The old Tiger didn't want to be relatable. He wanted to be better than everyone else at everything he did. By being impenetrable, he helped his peers see where they were weak. And in doing so, he single-handedly raised the bar of achievement.

This new Tiger wants us to learn from his frailty and ultimate redemption. A worthwhile lesson, for sure. But it's one we've already learned many times before, from people far greater than he.