Tiger Yes and Tiger No

Besides being the arguably the game's greatest player ever, Tiger also has to be its most massive lightning rod.

From reader Tom Todd this week:

Best golfer on the PGA Tour? absolutely. Will he break Jack's records? probably. Was Tiger's profanity laden outburst "out-of-bounds"? Most definitely - young people look up to Tiger as their hero and the way he acted in front of these kids was unacceptable. Shame on ESPN and The Golf Channel for giving Tiger a pass on this. It appears the media is afraid to take him to task when he has a grave !apse in judgment. Tiger whines about the quality of the greens. Then he goes ballistic over the sound of a clicking camera ruining his shot. Come on Tiger. You make millions and millions of dollars playing a game. By wanting to be the very best in the world, you should accept a few minor distractions in your very blessed life.

Reader Jim Woods says good job to John Hawkins for reminding us of "Tiger saying he was impervous to such disturbances because Earl, his all-knowing father, used to jingle keys in the kid's backswing."

Thanks to > The Angry Golfer for printing what I've been saying to friends for a couple of years. After hearing the story a million times about how Earl jingled coins and performed other tricks to distract Tiger, I was baffled by how Tiger would go ballistic because of the click of a camera. Two choices.....stop the Earl story, or have Tiger live up to it.

You're right about the language. Who can defend it? He ain't perfect. But he's about as close as we'll ever see. He is our Ruth...another guy with a few flaws.

--Bob Carney