An honored guest is putting into town next week, but instead of tea and crumpets, we might need to break out the handkerchiefs and chastity belts.
- Photo Ryn Gargulinski
- Consider yourself warned: Tiger’s coming to town.
Tiger Woods is coming to Marana.
Woods’ website schedule says he’ll be attending the Accenture Match Play Championships at Marana’s Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. The tournament runs from Feb. 23 to 27.
Although his reputation nose-dived from a top-notch golfer to a first-class cheater, Woods still fuels the general public with much fascination, much in the same way we can’t stop staring at car wreck or a big, fat zit.
Expect traffic delays.
Even people who are not fans of golf have come to appreciate Woods for his public displays. Seeing him in action can provide hours of entertainment since we never know what he’ll come up with next.
One of his most recent antics was spitting on the 12th green during the final round of the Dubai Desert Classic, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Here’s where our handkerchiefs come into play.
The act of hurling a wad of spit onto a pristine green during a public tournament not only horrified at least one sportscaster, but also merited Woods a monetary fine. The European Tour slapped him with the fine for breaching the tour’s code of ethics.
As if Woods would know about ethics. His more notorious claim to fame, of course, is the 120 women with whom he allegedly cheated while married to Elin Nordegren.
The exciting public display in the scandal came to a head Nov. 27, 2009, when Woods smashed his SUV into a fire hydrant in the middle of the night. Nordegren had reportedly shattered the vehicle’s back window with, quite ironically, a golf club.
Some say she broke the glass to help him get out of the locked SUV. Those are the same folks who were probably moved by—or even believed—Woods’ tear-stocked public apology when the cheating scandal broke.
Here’s the other place to whip out our handkerchiefs.
Woods fall from grace is not entirely his fault, those same folks argue. They claim Americans were putting his whole life on a pedestal when we should have just focused on his golf game rather than his personal business.
While that theory does have a ring of common sense, it also takes all the fun out of it. Scandal-plagued careers are much more exciting to track than those stocked only with victories. It makes us feel good to know we are not the only ones who can really screw things up.
We even have the advantage when it comes to faux pas: ours are much easier to sweep beneath the rug.
When someone like Woods messes up, it also proves these bigger-than-life personas are, at their very core, simply human. No matter how wonderful their minds or adoring fans might tell them they are, they are really not holier than thou.
They can share the same twisted thinking, the same lack of respect and the same bad spitting habits as the guy, or gal, next door.
Thus we look forward to Tiger’s arrival. It’s big fun to have notorious folks in town.
Just take a gander at how Dillinger and his gang really spruced things up.
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Ryn Gargulinski, aka Rynski, is a writer, artist, performer and poet. Her radio show airs every Wednesday and her column appears every Friday. See more writing and art from RYNdustries at ryngargulinski.com and rynski.etsy.com.
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2011.
What a stupid article. Too bad your mistakes and flaws can’t be held up to the light as you enjoyed doing to Tiger. Tiger has moved on and obviously you can’t seem to do the same.
I feel like all of these columns are just complaining about things that no one cares about.
I would have thought Tiger was old news by now – or at least most people think so.
A reminder that name-calling is not tolerated at TucsonWeekly.com. Thanks!
glad tiger is such an enjoyable topic!
harold – aww, harold. the spitting is def. a new development, just so you know.
shasta – thanks for your valued input.
jamisonrk – interesting you find ‘all these columns are just complaining’ when last week’s defended tucson as a romantic city, the one prior to that gave kudos to the streetcar as shopping therapy and the one prior to that lauded tucson’s artistic talent and the power of art to heal. perhaps some only see what their blinders allow.
happy weekend!
RYN GARGULINSKI – Get a life. Even in Tucson, at the WEEKLY. Really, protests, riots and death all across the mideast, Wisconsin trying to destroy ONLY Democratic unions of common folk. Tiger broke no laws, was morally reprehensible and probably in the top two golfers ever in the history of the game and probably not through half his life… and you need to do this. You know, I know why 🙂 If you write about Tucson that article dies in the darkness of Google’s search engine… but IF you say TIGER TIGER! you get your measly 5 seconds in the light.
I love sports. I hate golf. Your writing is excellent and makes me chuckle.
Tiger Woods is excellent and is a chuckle head. There, I think that clears it up.
xsolo – may i invite you to join my fan page?
hey radmax! – thanks for your input. glad SOMEONE got a chuckle – me thinks people are wound a bit tight these days….
Shame on you Rynski! Don’t you realize that NO ONE is covering these exciting developments in the Arab world? I myself cannot WAIT to see what new despot ends up where…
Ps- appears you have roused the ugly beast that is…the Tiger Woods fan club… 😉
A couple of requests for next week’s show-“Crazy for You” by Madonna,and “I Go Crazy” by the late Paul Davis-BTW-you are Tucson’s “Tokyo Rose”-Love your weekly show even though I disagree with many of your viewpoints-conservatives are audiophiles too!!-With Love,Larissa
The funny think about the Tiger spitting incident is no one made such a big deal when someone eles did it! Sergio Garcia spit in the hole back in 2007… nice for the next guy.. but nothing was made of it except for a 20 second spot on the golf channel.I have seen the replay, momentary laps Garcia did it on purpose. Let him pay the fine and sell the news someother way
hey larissa – awww, you’re sweet! thanks for CRAZY song requests…and compliments on my show – so cool you’re tuning in! so glad you can enjoy even if disagree – very happy to hear it! i’ll definitely dig up one or both of the tunes for ya. thanks again.
hiya mark3366 –
good point on spitting not being a big deal for someone else…my theory is some people may be on the lookout for ANYTHING! tiger does wrong after his rep. was marred – (no names please – haha). but you’re absolutely right about moving on past the spittle….as long as he doesn’t pull the same stint in marana, for goodness sake. the main news on this one is that tiger is coming to town, not that he spit. that was just a bit of gravy, so to speak. thanks for input.
I dont remember hearing tiger had chased any married women, and frankly golf is my only concern about his life. He is being treated like a hollywood figure to sell the rags. If he were the first celeb to do something stupid or find himself in the middle of a divorce i would probably feel differnetly. But my mind is its his business he’s paid the price, now let him get on with his craft.