I was talking to a buddy of mine today and we found ourselves talking again about what else but Tiger Woods and the breaking news today involving his mother-in-law and the alleged mistresses that keep coming out of the wood works. He made a good point that I think is worth mentioning. This thing has now turned into a absolute media circus with no end in sight. This debacle has just shown how much the game has changed since the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Lee Trevino played. Sure the object of the game is the same, but along with the equipment changes and the courses being lengthened, the spotlight on these guys today is brighter than ever. When you have the worlds most famous and richest athlete wrapped up in what could go down as the biggest sex scandal ever, of course that is gonna lead every newscast. But with the help of social media and the mainstream media, what else could you ask for. Sure you can blame it on the money that is involved these days. When you have the players today making 10, 20, 50 and in Tiger’s case 100 million dollars a year, the spotlight is gonna be brighter. But the difference I see the most is the means at to which information is passed around. When word broke tha Tiger Woods was involved in a car accident, I was playing golf. Who else but my mom text me to tell me. I told my buddy who was in the cart with me who in turn text his brother for any updates. When I got home and fired up the laptop the story ruled not only every sports website but mainstream media sites and it was the lead story on every local news site. Twitter was buzzing. Facebook was going crazy. The blogosphere was busy. Everyone was sharing information with the click of a button. How do you think it would have gone down if the biggest sports star of the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s did the same thing? I’m sure word would spread around certain groups of people, but there was nothing around then like today. Once you tell someone back then, it would more-than-likely have stopped there. There was no-one to text to share anymore information with.
Tiger Woods is stuck in a media whirlwind right now and even worse the mud is being thrown around in the gossip circles. People eat this stuff up. I eat this stuff up. I cannot get enough of checking my favorite sports sites for any updates on Tiger. And that is why this is not coming to an end anytime soon. What Tiger Woods has allegedly done to his wife and family is horrible. You just cannot do that when you are that guy and be so clueless and arrogant to think you will never be caught. But can you sit here and tell me that other players are not doing the same thing to their families right now? Can you tell me the golfers of Jack’s era did not do this stuff behind their wives backs?
The truth is these players are not who you really think they are, and the media is waiting for them to mess up… And if you are Tiger Woods, you have just shanked a ball into the water on the 18th hole of a major. You have to get yourself out of it now.
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