Tiger's apology speech (can you relate?)

Dear oh dear. The public confession that was supposed to resurrect the shattered image of the world’s greatest sportsman and re-establish the bond with his global fan base became – over the course of 13½ toe-curling, ghoulishly riveting minutes – a car crash of spectacular proportions. Tiger Woods looked assured as he walked into a room full of carefully selected guests, but a speech as bizarre in content as in delivery spoke volumes about the curious world inhabited by golf’s former golden child.

Choreographed, one imagines, down to the post-speech hug with his Mom, and seemingly put together by a team of advisers whose most conspicuous desire was to take his public contrition to stratospheric levels, this was a speech that had it all: regret, tears, apologies, dramatic pauses, meaningful glances, stern words about privacy, even religion.

But what the speech lacked, in any tangible sense, was authenticity. If Woods hoped his performance would engineer redemption in the eyes of the world and, more importantly, the corporations that he yearns to win back, he surely failed.

“I have a lot of work to do and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don’t realise it but I was raised a Buddhist and I actively practised my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years.”

Nobody expected Woods to mention the B word or to hint at a new path towards spiritual enlightenment. But while we should not mock his convictions, we are at least entitled to ask why in the past he has so studiously refused to talk about his religious upbringing. Might it be that his advisers were concerned about how Woods’ Buddhism would play with consumers in America’s Bible Belt?

“I would like to thank my friends at Accenture and the players in the field this week for understanding why I’m making these remarks today.”

It is a miracle Woods managed to say this with a straight face, or perhaps his advisers cut and pasted it into the speech just before he made his lonely walk into the spotlight. Accenture was, of course, among the first of Woods’ sponsors to make for the exit door when the scandal broke and many have conjectured that Woods’ decision to conduct his press conference yesterday, on the second day of the Accenture Classic, was to cock a snook at his erstwhile “friends”.

“I have always tried to maintain a private space for my wife and children. They have been kept separate from my sponsors, my commercial endorsements. When my children were born, we only released photographs so that the paparazzi could not chase them. They staked out my wife and they pursued my Mom. Whatever my wrongdoings, for the sake of my family, please leave my wife and kids alone.”

Well, fair enough, and there is little doubt that Woods has a deep commitment to his family’s privacy, but it poses the question: can an individual legitimately expect to be left alone by the press when he has amassed a billion-dollar fortune, at least in part, on the basis of a public image that turned out to be a sham? Although there is a legitimate question about proportionality here, the deeper truth is that there is only one person to blame for the press intrusion — Woods himself.

“Thirteen years ago my dad and I envisioned helping young people achieve their dreams through education. This work remains unchanged and will continue to grow. From the Learning Centre students in Southern California to the Earl Woods scholars in Washington DC, millions of kids have changed their lives, and I am dedicated to making sure that continues.”

Woods is justifiably proud of the work done by his charitable projects, and it was inevitable that he would want to remind the world that he is not all bad. But even with these sentiments, Woods demonstrated a strange detachment from reality. Millions of kids? Would love to know where he gets those figures.

“I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn’t have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish. I don’t get to play by different rules.”

In by far the most powerful part of the speech, Woods articulated what many have been thinking, and he did so with conviction. Had more of the speech been like this, it is just possible that Woods would have drawn a line, however crooked and smudged, under the affair.

Where from here? Woods stated that he will return to rehab tomorrow, but also left open the possibility of a return to competitive golf this year. He may have shanked his public act of contrition, but the deeper and more urgent psychological question is how he will fare when he finally returns to golf’s major championships (via timesonline).