The Six Most Hilariously Sad Lines in Golf.com's Tiger Woods Analysis

Posted at 2:56 PM Dec 17, 2009

By Andrea Grimes

Golf.com/Gretchen Dow Mashkuri/WireImage

​If you're going to Golf Magazine for your hard-hitting media criticism and news analysis, may I suggest switching to ... oh, say, Perez Hilton instead? At first I thought it was just the codeine talking (hello, scary throat infection!) but it really looks like writer Cameron Morfit (whose name makes him sound like an awesome Death Eater) has some real hyperbolic gems in his piece, "Why The Tiger Woods Scandal Says More About Us Than It Does About Him."

I'm having a hard time getting worked up about the whole Woods cheating incident--celebrity relationships gone awry ... where have I heard that one before?--but apparently I'm the only one who'd rather watch reruns of Castle than worry about the romantic well-being of people I've never met. No, Morfit believes that the Tiger Woods scandal is an opportunity for us all to reflect on some cold, hard truths about American society. And, so I give you the six most hilariously sad lines in the Golf Mag piece:

1. It is a tale both familiar (Bill Clinton, Kobe Bryant, Eliot Spitzer) and unique -- seldom if ever has the public's perception of a man been so totally at odds with reality. (Heroic sports, political, celebrity figure who no one had really much reason to suspect of being anything other than a stand-up guy turns out to be philandering asshole? Familiar, yes. "Unique," no.)
   
2. It cuts across demographics, hitting the celebrity angle for women and the sports angle for men and giving both sides fodder in the ongoing battle of the sexes now being played out anew on an Internet message board near you. (FINALLY! Men and women now have something to argue about on Internet message boards! Men talk about sports and women talk about celebrity, and before the Tiger Woods saga, never the twain did meet.)
   
3. The story resonates for children, who have benefited most from Woods's philanthropy, specifically those who have visited his eponymous learning center in Anaheim, Calif. What are they to make of Woods and his interdisciplinary studies? (If this story "resonates" with your kid, I would seriously consider rethinking your family's home life.)
   
4. We are also, on some level, 4 years old again. We love to kick over sandcastles, the more elaborate the better, for the simple reason that it's interesting to watch them fall. (Watching things go heinously awry is exclusive to 4-year-olds? Has this guy never been stuck in rubbernecking traffic or ... witnessed a celeb scandal before? I need a juice box.)
   
5. What's more, the Tiger affair has changed our concept of happiness itself ... (THE VERY FABRIC OF OUR BEINGS IS UNRAVELING BEFORE OUR EYES.)
   
6. He was, it seems, a lost, lonely man, searching for happiness in all the wrong places. (Or, if you believe men merely seek to dominate other men, and to detonate their biological imperative far and wide, and to conquer the "Over the Top Benedicts" breakfast at Perkins, he was a very happy man. Discuss amongst yourselves.) (What does this even mean?)
   

According to Morfit, we've got Tiger all wrong. Tiger is a hero! An enigma! And yet not a comic book type hero! And flawed! But wonderful!

"Tiger Woods was named athlete of the decade by the Associated Press on Wednesday, and he deserves another award for remaining such an enigma. We still don't know Tiger very well, but it seems likely we will get to know him better soon. Oprah or someone like her will take center stage to broker a second introduction better than the first.

This Tiger will be more man, less comic book hero. He may or may not be married, but he will be flawed and, for the first time, relatable."

And yet nowhere does Morfit consider that Tiger might just be ... a really good golfer.