Author: It’s Tiger’s ‘Monica Lewinsky’ moment
published 2:17pm Thursday Dec 3, 2009
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Tiger Woods meets with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office back in April.PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA
While the world appears shocked by Tiger Wood’s recent car accident, the result of an apparent argument with his wife, Elin, over admitted infidelities, which may, appropriately enough, have involved his wife brandishing of a golf club, Golf Digest writer Tom Callahan, a former Barboursville resident who wrote a 2004 biography of Woods called Searching for Tiger, wonders what all the fuss is about.
“He’s a famous billionaire, and he’s been with other women,” says Callahan, who now lives in Florida and says has no idea what really happened at Tiger’s house that night. “Gee, stop the presses. It’s just not that startling to me.”
Callahan says he’s not particularly close to Woods, despite tracking down his subject’s namesake for the book, and he won’t speculate on what happened the night of the accident.
“I haven’t seen him since the Players, but I’ve been in his house, talked to him,” says Callahan. “He associates me with his father, because I went to Vietnam.”
Woods’ father, Earl Woods, a former Green Beret who died of cancer in 2006 at the age of 74, had befriended a South Vietnamese colonel named Vuong Dang Phong during his second tour of duty, and gave him the nickname “Tiger Phong.” When the elder Woods’ Thai-Dutch wife, Kultida, gave birth to a son on December 30, 1975, she gave him the invented name Eldrick, because, as Callahan explains, it began with an E for Earl and ended with a K for Kultida. But Earl Woods also gave him the nickname Tiger.
“I knew, instinctively knew,” Earl told Callahan, “that my son was going to have fame. Someday my old friend would see him on television, read about him in a newspaper or magazine, and say, ‘That must be Woody’s kid,’ and we’d find each other again.”
Unfortunately, as Callahan learned, after the fall of Saigon in 1975, Phong had been sent to a “political re-education camp” where he died a year later, just eight months after the birth of his namesake. In 1997, Callahan helped set up a reunion for Woods and his father with Phong’s widow and children in Vietnam.
“I wanted Tiger to experience it,” Earl Woods told Callahan. “Before, this was just a story to him. Then it became a reality.”
So what would Earl Woods think of his son’s current experience with reality?
“In the vast scheme of things, it’s not the biggest thing in the world,” says Callahan. “He’s not OJ, he didn’t kill anybody. The flesh is weak, and he’s having his Monica Lewinsky moment. Muhammad Ali had a lot of children with a lot of different women, and Arnold Palmer was a ladies man. And look at A-Rod.”
So what now for Woods?
“He’ll probably shut everything down until Torrey Pines,” says Callahan.
That would be the Buick Invitational in San Diego at the end of January, the first tournament Woods plays every year, and which he has won six times.
“The tabloids, especially the British ones,” says Callahan, “are going to have a field day.”
Tiger Woods has not done or said anything that the majority of the male population hasn’t done. I don’t think it’s anybody’s business what he does in the first place. All he really has to do in this lifetime is pay taxes and die. The rest is his and his wife’s personal business. If she becomes an ex-wife, so be it. If not, that’s fine too.
As far as the car crash, all he has to answer to is his insurance company. You’ll never see any type of conviction in whatever silly charge the Highway Patrol placed against him. I don’t even know why they wasted tax money harassing him. Another fine example of no evidence, but we’ll charge him anyway.
That is my humble opinion about the entire Tiger Woods show this past week. Gasbag haters, get over it if you disagree.
Only reason people care is because he lives in the spotlight. If it was you or me, no one would care.
Comment deleted because the user has a history of using various aliases to personally attack other commenters.–moderator
This is EXACTLY how you deal with a mistake like this. You own up and ask people to leave your family alone. He didn’t ask for forgiveness or cry or whine, he just admitted that he screwed up and wants to make it right. His wife will be the judge of that.
If Bill clinton had done that when he got caught he wouldn’t have been accused of diversion when he bombed the terrorists at the pharmaceutical plant and we might have been in a better postion to prevent 9/11.
The real question is..how long before one of the sluts involved does a spread for playboy?
(a perfect example of “trickle down” economics)
quote: “…he just admitted that he screwed up and wants to make it right….”
I don’t see why Tiger felt he even had to do that! As long as he is doing whatever he wants to do in his private life, and using his own money to do so, why does he owe anybody an explanation?
I doubt if any of his sponsors would have dropped him with or without an explanation.
At least he didn’t run off a bridge somewhere while drunk and drown a young girl. :)
He owes an explanation because he wants us to purchase the products he endorses that pays for the escalade and the golf club that broke the window out of same
If and when I buy anything, the purchase has nothing to do with whether Tiger Woods has endorsed it or not. But, that’s just me I guess.
It would be you and others. But his sponsers dont shell out millions if millions of people dont buy. Alot of kids buy those products having, right or wrong, Tiger as a role model. He owes an explanation to them and there parents. We all know the parents should be the role models in a perfect world. Im afraid thats not the case in most situations.
OH GOOD GRIEF,
Tiger is human, thats all the explaination ppl need..
Gasbag… Im your fan! you have good points and some bad, mostly good.But ya know what! its your opinion .. which are like a#^&^%%^# everyone has one.. :O)
It is a free country, I think.. since the election.. I’m not so sure anymore.. anyway.. Im the ex of a ACSD,SPD.and a few other agencies.. thats another story..
the sponsors are all saying the right thing now as they have no choice. the key moment is not now, but in 6-9-12 months, after this has died down, you very well may see some sponsors bail out. they would be foolish to do it right now, little upside for them. but they may already be forming a plan to get out of the deal. Nike will stick forever, short of murder, but the others could easily bail out.
none of this tiger news surprised me. always felt he was a crappy dude and now we know.
Ya know, on second thought, Tiger doesn’t even owe his insurance company an explanation. He has the money to junk the escalade and purchase a new one.
Meme me, in reference to the ex thing. You have my sympathies. Divorce, alcoholism, spousal abuse and suicide runs rampant in a lot of law enforcement marriages. I hope you didn’t have to endure any of the four.
ACSD,SPD.and a few other agencies….. I probably know, but I can’t for the life of me recall who that might be. Don’t post a name here though, I’ll figure it out.
SPOUSAL INFEDILITY…….
Oh, yes!
But of course this figures into the rampant “divorce” date I mentioned above. There’s a lot of truth to the badge and uniform attracting women. They’re often called “badge bunnies” or “fender lizards”. They have ruined more than one law enforcement marriage.
It’s also a fact tough that many cops continue to have a successful marriage, but also keeps the “badge bunnies” and “fender lizards” on the side. Glad you found out.
In Tiger’s case, he doesn’t need a badge and uniform. I am sure the women are after his money. I probably would be too if I was a female. :)
Absolutely.. I still have friends that are faithful to their wives.. but some… if the wives only knew!
Tell ‘em! I think they will appreciate it. They may not believe you, but it will give them the incentive to get out and see for themselves if it’s true or not.
32 years ago, I was at a meeting with Senator Harry Michael one night at Wintegreen. Unbeknownst to me, my first wife was at a party at the FOP lodge with another cop at the same time. They thought I would never find out about their affair I guess. It was another cop who told me, and I truly appreciated his telling me. We divorced, they got married. Their divorce later ended too.
One of my sister-in-laws pressured me into admitting her husband was running around on her The admission happened quite suddenly and quite unexpectantly. Turns out she was pressuring me about another issue, and I confessed the wrong issue. My bad! Anyhow, he’s the brother-in-law who was terminated at ACPD shortly after my first false arrest back in 1997.
Boy, oh boy, I think I have seen and heard it all in my lifetime.
So, to get back to the point of the article and to clarify the consensus of this thread: the kid who ran got what was coming to him, and tasers are an effective but underutilized tool of law enforcement.
Oops. Wrong article.
The consensus here seems to be that cheating on your spouse is ok because most people do it anyway. So, go Tiger go!
Dear Mr. Callahan,
It doesn’t surprise me that a “man” would make such a statement as to completely dismiss the fact that marriage is supposed to be a faithful commitment regardless of how much money you have and how much fame. Just because he’s a famous billionaire doesn’t give him the right to be an ass, or, to hurt his family. So then it would be perfectly okay for Elin to go out carousing around dating and sleeping with other men, right? Well, why not? She’s pretty darn rich herself and famous enough. It’s those kind of opinions (usually made by men), that make men look like dogs. I completely disagree with you but I will say that it isn’t anybodies business but Tiger and his family. For that reason alone the media should back off.