Tiger Woods

A number of years ago, as a bright-faced, take-on-the-world college freshman, I wanted to write an editorial piece entitled: "Why Tiger Woods should be hit by a bus" for my college newspaper.

I never ended up finishing that piece, not only because my editor was a little more pragmatic than me and wouldn't have let it been published anyway but because I would have felt even worse if Tiger Woods was actually hit by a bus (and wielding cosmic powers like that would've gone straight to my head).

My point was that (and still is to some extent), that enough with "the hype." There was so much press surrounding Tiger in 2002/2003 (and before, and after) and I was tired of hearing it all. Great. Tiger was winning EVERYTHING. Fantastic. In a sport that I didn't really care about at the time (and for the most part, still don't).

Tiger Woods was the Harry Potter of golf. Especially if you grew up in golf country like I did. Other sports have superstars, but Tiger Woods was the lone supernova of the golf world. Just like Harry Potter was there for a few years (now supplanted by the Twilight series).

Now that I am older, wiser, and more sober than I was during my college years - I realize that Tiger Woods and Harry Potter have their purposes in life. Harry Potter, whether or not you like the book or the hype, has probably led to numerous kids who've fallen in love with reading and books because of the book series. Though you can complain about *what* these people are reading, you can't really complain about anything that leads to kids reading.

Likewise with Tiger, you could have complained (as I did) that he wins everything and makes the sport uninteresting to follow. But now I watch him play (when I never had before) because I want to see him dominate the sport. And if he doesn't win, it means that someone else rose to the challenge - someone else whose golf career I can take an interest in (such as Rocco Mediate).

After last year's epic victory on ONE GOOD KNEE - it's hard root against Tiger. Of course, I feel bad for every kid out there whose dad thinks his son is going to be the next Tiger, but some kid(s) out there might come close. Hopefully they won't have to grow up with the same hype though.