Knowing how much and how long I have loved the game of golf, many people have flooded my e-mail in-box with jokes, cartoons and amusingly-doctored photos dealing with the Tiger Woods affair(s). After taking a cursory look at a few of them, I haven't even opened the rest...and don't plan to. Here's why... My lifelong interest in golf and the great champions who have played man's oldest game, is as much based on their character off the course as their prowess on. For example, I grew-up with Bobby Jones as my hero for how he led his personal life in spite of his fame for his mind-boggling on-course exploits. Similarly, while always believing Babe Didrikson Zaharias to have been the greatest athlete of the twentieth century, what I admired most about her was the way she demonstrated time and again, by example, just what a woman was capable of in a so-called Man's World... right up to the end of her tragically abbreviated life. Like every other student of the game, I hope to continue being rendered speechless by the unmatched quality of every facet of Tiger's game, the fierceness of his never-say-die competitive spirit, and the trancelike self-discipline he musters and sustains without interruption through seventy-two holes. What's more, I don't question for a moment that he is entitled to a personal life with its byword being the name of his yacht, or rather ship..."Privacy." All of that having been said though, in my opinion, Eldrick Woods may be an on-course Tiger, the likes of which none have come before him, but alas, off it he is no Mr. Nicklaus, Mr. Hogan, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Jones, Mr. Ouimet or Mr. Vardon. Pity.
Stuart Kern, San Pedro, CA
I like the letter because it captures the hangover-like feeling one has as this sordid episode winds back to some kind of normalcy. What we're left with, at the end of all the accusation, titillation, and shock, is the sense of sadness and disappointment that we ever had to learn this about one of our heroes, the sadness Kern expresses in his final word.
--Bob Carney
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