In defense of Tiger Woods
Common Sense University does not recall a person’s life and reputation turning as fast as Tiger Woods’s during the aftermath of what became known as a minor accident during the night after Thanksgiving Day as he was leaving his property in Windermere, Florida. Tiger was not seriously injured and a neighbor reported that he had heard the noise of a crash and also had seen him laying on the ground seemingly unconscious for a short time.
And while the mystery fascinated people throughout the country, within days after this incident, women were going public with stories of having sexual relations with Tiger Woods during the past couple of years. Some of these women had tape recordings of evidence of their claims and within a very short week, about a dozen women claimed to have been intimate with this married man, Tiger Woods.
Needless to say, that really turned on the rumor mills everywhere and coupled with Tiger’s limited statements to the media (including his self-imposed suspension of playing in upcoming golf tournaments), it was all factual, period! Tiger Woods, America’s sports idol was found to be a multiple wife-cheater and the stories kept on coming that his Swedish born wife, Elin, was about to file for a divorce demanding anywhere from 200 to 300 million dollars in settlement reimbursement from her husband.
True or false, Tiger did the smartest thing he could do under the circumstances, he remained silent! The more disgusting story in all this so called scandal was the expediency by which everybody seemed to dump on Tiger Woods. He became the pun of late-night television shows and with that, the entire media felt compelled not to be left out and they tried their best to outdo others in speculating and rumor-mongering about Tiger Woods, the newly disgraced former super hero. The one exception being the professional golfers who mostly remained silent and did not join the game of “Tiger-bashing”. We respect them for that.
We here at Common Sense University would not be truthful if we did not express our deeply felt sadness about this entire episode, but that is where it ends. We would never join the fray of all the others to judge him negatively and now make him out to be one of the worst villains in America. We here, as almost all of America, do not know any of the circumstances which brought about the alleged extra-marital affairs of which Tiger Woods is currently accused of. We say this because we do not know much about Elin, the former Swedish swimsuit model who met Tiger in 2001 when she was an au-pair girl for the children of Swedish pro-golfer Jesper Parnevik. They began dating and she became Mrs. Woods in October 2004. She gave birth to a daughter and a son in 2007 and 2009 respectively and turned 30 years old on January 1, 2010.
Other than that, we do not know much about her, her personality or her being the wife of the world’s most successful golfer for the past years. With that, we also do not know anything about the circumstances that allegedly drove Tiger Woods to have extra-marital relationships, and we emphasize “allegedly!” Elin kept a low profile during those past years, she was not seen at many golf tournaments throughout the years and we do not know if that was by consent between the two of them or for other reasons. We, the general public really do not know much about her interests, hobbies and other such elements that round out a life of prominence. What do we know about their dialogues as spouses and their day to day lives? Nothing! Did she share his interests in all matters golf or was she more interested in decorating houses and the like? We do not want to speculate here but there could be a vast variety of reasons why Tiger developed a need for “comfort” with other women, assuming that that really occurred. We conclude that we do NOT know what kind of wife Elin was to Tiger!
So then, let’s do what we owe them (and especially Tiger): Give them space and privacy, the future of them is theirs to decide, their children are very young and whatever the outcome of their decisions, it is theirs to make. We wish them both the best for the future and hope for the return of Tiger to the PGA golf circuit.