FOUR!!!!

Just when you thought the world was safe and that beloved sports figures would stay beloved, another ball finds it’s way into the sand trap of life. Tiger Woods – the most disciplined and seemingly perfect man of all time has shanked big time and he wasn’t even holding a golf club – someone else was….

Last night on the Joy Behar show and probably every other media outlet as well, this was the topic of discussion. I joined the panel via satellite from Los Angeles with Joy and her guests publisher Judith Reagen plus a woman who was an expert on marriage ( god help us)!! We were supposed to use it as a jumping off point to talk about woman who no longer wanted to stand by their man, but things got a little murky right from jump.

First of all, am I the only one who thought Tiger Woods didn’t have sex? I know he has 2 children and a very hot Swedish wife but he just seemed so above the fray and wholesome like he was practicing his putting 18 hours a day or constantly re-washing his golf balls. I just assumed that even though he was powerful and rich and had access to everything that he was a still ‘good boy.’ I mean really – his life seemed pretty kick ass – a fantastic career, a net worth of over 1 billion dollars, aforementioned hot wife and 2 beautiful children. What else could he possibly want?

Probably NOT a creepy car wreck on his front lawn, where he is driving barefoot and runs into a neighbors tree? Or a party girl who can barely string a sentence together hiring a victim advocates lawyer (Hello Gloria Allred – how are you?) to probably ink the deal on her new reality show planing ‘bottle’ parties for the PGA? Or how about a lovely cocktail waitress from Las Vegas who just happens to have saved over 300 text messages from Tiger on her pink and glittery cell phone? You know – just in case he wanted to show his wife when there was a lull in the dinner conversation. How about her? Is this really what Tiger Wood’s went looking for?

It makes you wonder – a few things. I guess the first aspect of it, and to a certain extend I have been through this – is it really anybody’s business? Does the public really have the right to know every gruesome detail of someone else’s personal business? Now mine was just kind of low rent and tacky, but it was public and humiliating and in it’s own way a car wreck, but at least I wasn’t driving.

Yet when something like this happens I always think of a few things.
Firstly, how could any of our truly beloved figures have ever remained beloved – John F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King, Bob Hope (yes even Bob Hope was known to swing his club in a extra curricular fashion) if they had of been under this type of public scrutiny? It would have been impossible and distracting and would have most likely altered their public contribution and legacy. Do we really need to know everything??

Yet the combination is intoxicating – infidelity, anger, image and perception – perhaps even a little domestic violence. No wonder we are hooked. Our culture is firmly rooted in the building up and taking down of those we revere.

Which leads me to my next point – even when a man presumably has it all is it never quite enough? Story after story of the fallen male figure – from the glib and permanently tanned politicians and religious leaders to the much respected David Lettermen and now Tiger Woods.

I don’t get it – really I don’t. Their choices seem a little – yucky. And kind of insulting to the women they are with. These women they choose to stray with might as well be aliens from another planet they are so different from their wives. And the risk – not to just themselves but the things they hold most dear – it just makes no sense.

So another one bites the dust and I am kind of nervous to see who is next. So is my Aunt Sue, one of my favorite people and the best nun ever. She has put all her faith in Obama and I am hoping with a little divine intervention ( maybe from Aunt Sue’s boss) he will be fine….

Just stay away from the golf course….

MJ