Capelle On Golf

Except for his swing, Tiger Woods has resisted change his entire career. It’s pretty much been Tiger’s Way or the highway for the sporting world’s ultimate control freak.

In the aftermath of the Great Tiger Woods Scandal of ’09, however, change has finally been forced upon him. The public is demanding it, sponsors will require it, his family must have it, and, most important, Tiger realizes (I hope) that it’s time for him to just do it.

Immediate and Mandatory Changes
Giving Up his Other Life
Give up sexually skilled women for someone who evidently did not completely satisfy him. Whatever Elin did, or didn’t do in the bedroom (which is where I leave off and the tabloids only too gladly pick up the ball) is not likely going to change. That is, if we are to believe what we’ve heard, he will be trading Baskin Robbins for vanilla. For a soon to be 34 year old with an abnormally high sex drive, that’s a tough pill for him to swallow.

Give Power to Elin Woods
While I wonder if an immediate reconciliation is the right move (more on this below), if Tiger goes this route, he will have to give a big share of the power to his wife. Tiger is a control freak, so this won’t be easy. One moment he’s supposedly ready to leave her, and, if we are to believe the tabloids, wished he had met Rachel Uchitel first. Now he’s doing and about face and is committing to someone he wishes he’s never married?

Drug Usage
Tiger must dump the pain killers which he may be addicted. He admitted to taking a pain killer at the 2008 U.S. Open when his pain was far greater than it is today. Surgery followed and he may have taken Vicodin during rehab and never stopped. Now he must stop. Besides, narcotics violate the PGA Tour’s drug policy, the one that he pushed so hard for! As for the Ambien, perhaps he and Elin … (see tabloids).

Changes for when he Comes Back to Golf

• Learn to win without the anger response (cursing, club throwing).
• Interact with the fans, smile, and sign some autographs.
• Answer a few hard balls in the media room and open up to the public.
• Develop a new persona that we can believe in should he wish to continue to pitch products.
• An expansion of his charity work would be nice. Maybe he could become a spokesman for the virtues of monogamy.
• Oh, and straighten out that driver!

Tiger’s got a lot on his plate. He’s got to wipe his slate clean of a lifetime of habits and beliefs that have brought him to this place and rebuild himself from the ground up. Considering the amount of work to be done, it is no wonder that he is taking a leave of absence from golf.

Tiger changed his swing twice and won numerous majors with the new versions. But can he change his very being and become a winner off the course as well?

Tiger’s knows golf, so changing his swing was comparatively easy. Changing his life, about which he apparently knows so little, is going to be a far more difficult task. He’s going to require help and he will need to trust people from outside his inner circle. He needs a new Team Tiger that has his interests at heart. Luckily the kind of help he needs comes from professionals who are sworn to secrecy.

I applaud Tiger for what appears to be his sincere effort to do the right thing. Getting away from golf is a good idea. Beyond that, I doubt that Tiger knows what’s best for him.

“After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.”

Tiger is in a process of evolution. What he believes today could change tomorrow. He may think that he wants to patch things up with Elin and become a devoted family man, but how can he know for sure when he doesn’t have a clue who he is or wants to become?

Assuming Tiger entered into intensive one-on-one therapy for his many issues (sex addiction, marriage, image, drugs, on-course behavior, etc) immediately following the accident, he would still be in the early stage of his transformation.

Maybe he had time to feel the emptiness of being away from Elin and the kids, but he’s had nowhere close to the time needed to discover who he’s been, who he is he, or what he wants to become.

So, at this point, how does he really know that he wants to remain with Elin? And how can Elin know that she wants to remain with Tiger when she hasn’t a clue what the new Tiger’s going to be like, or what he really wants in life? And surely she doesn’t really want to stay together just for the kids – that’s no good for any of them.

Tiger is a mess, that’s a given. A statement on his web site and an attempt to behave for Elin, however well intentioned, is not going to magically solve his problems. Before he and his family can heal, he needs to get right with himself. If he does, everything that is meant to happen will fall into place.

Let’s hope he understands that, but, sadly, I doubt that he does.