Karl Klockars

Before we get cranking on my soon-to-be-famous Unifying Theory of Tiger Woods’ Transgressions, we have to take it back to the day after Thanksgiving to get the proper context.  Some of you may be wondering to yourself, “With 2 wars, a still-dismal economy, and so many other unsolved problems in the world, why are we so stuck on where one professional golfer puts his genitals?”

The answer is this:  The press smelled blood in the water as soon as the news broke.  Something was fishy, we all knew it, and after the feeding frenzy has begun there’s no stopping it until all the meat is gone.  And let’s face it – it turns out there’s a lot of meat here.  From the word “go” when the first reports came out that the accident was in the middle of the night after Thanksgiving, and didn’t come out until a half-day after it happened…well, there wasn’t any stopping the conjecture, and say what you will about the press, there’s a pretty good sense of when something hinky is going on.  And they were spot on about it this time.

Whether or not you want to have the story continue to be covered is debatable, but if it wasn’t Tiger Woods, would you have your nose in the air?  If it were Tommy Lee or Anna Nicole Smith, someone who is pretty easy to poke fun at in the media, would we be hollering about privacy?  Celebrity is celebrity, and if Michael Jordan had rammed his SUV (purchased from Your Local Chevy Dealer, of course) into something during a holiday and then the infidelity reports came out, we’d be doing the same damn thing.

Anyways.  Everyone is trying to get inside Tiger’s head and figure out exactly why he’d go out and pursue all that tail when he had a perfectly dreamy blonde at home.  The answer (to me) is simple – he’s kind of a dork.  Now, this is just a theory, and I could be completely wrong here – but hear me out and let me know if I win you over.

I know, I know, he was on TV when he was practically a fetus, and everyone thinks that he’s basically been famous for every second since then.  But it’s easy to forget that while he was having golf clubs essentially bolted through his hands through grade school and high school, he was also not the media golden child he was up through the end of last week.

He was basically just a radically talented kid.  There’s one at almost every  high school – the kid that just excels at something to a freakish level above their peers, be it at math or chess or drawing or anything.  Well, anything excluding team sports.  I say team sports because if you’re the unbelievably talented captain of the basketball team or something like that, you end up being LeBron James or you end up being popular during high school and grow up to sell used cars.  Either or.

But Tiger was one of those anomalies.  One of those disgustingly talented people, and he was extremely good at an individual outlet of expression.  The man could swing a golf club like no one else.  Talents like that can end up earning you fame and glory down the road, but early in life they have a tendency to simply separate you from your peers.  You may be good, but even worse than that – you’re different. I have a feeling that even though his talent is certainly celebrated on the professional level, and I’m sure he was being heralded as he worked through the amateur level, overall he was still something of a loner.

I can see it in his eyes.  You can still see it in how he carries himself.  He never struck me as being terribly comfortable anywhere, save for a golf course.  As a near total loner, I can smell the loner vibe coming off of him in waves.  He probably wasn’t the most popular kid in the world.  And I’m guessing that all this practice and all this self-imposed exile from general adolescent society kept him away from a lot of girls.

So what happens to a socially malajusted guy who was probably never very popular with the ladies when he’s thrust into the world spotlight and handed a hundred million dollars?  He’s going to go a little bit ladycrazy.  And when that is reinforced by more money and more popularity and more acclaim, that behavior is going to continue.

Duh.

So is this to excuse the idea that you can have sex with multiple women outside of the boundaries of marriage?  Of course not.  But consider that maybe he’s trying to make up for lost time after years and years spent on greens and fairways.  Consider that he might have gone from zero contact with humanity, to international superstar, in no time flat, and might not have exactly adjusted like the rest of us.

Look, I’m not excusing the guy his lack of taste – a Tool Academy alum, Tiger?  Now you’re in that unpleasant “Bill/Monica” camp, and you’re stuck with that for better or worse.  Nor am I pardoning his actions.  And again, this is all just a theory.  But I’ve got a shiny nickel that says that if he wasn’t driven to golf from the womb, he’d be very proficient with something like Pokemon cards or Dungeons and Dragons characters.