I heard the public apology by Tiger Woods last Friday on the BBC London evening news show, and was kind of satisfied when fate had me go through a long stretch of tunnel during that story on the way back from east London to Heathrow. I find it odd that Tiger Woods has to apologise to the rest of us for cheating on his wife. It is his wife that got hurt. We were just a bit disappointed (actually, I wasn’t; I didn’t care).<\/p>\n
It’s not as if Tiger Woods is a priest or someone else who makes his living preaching about such matters. He plays golf for a living, and while golf may be known as a “gentleman’s sport” without tolerance for the boorish antics other sports are notorious for, golf is notorious as the sport of the rich and privileged, of those very so-called gentlemen. In some places, golf courses are known for environmental damage, for being built on stolen land and for using scarce water. A few years ago George Monbiot wrote these two articles ([1]<\/a>, [2]<\/a>) about the involvement of Gary Player, a renowned South African golfer, in a golf development in Myanmar (Burma) and in other countries in the Far East where golf is the sport of corrupt and oppressive elites.<\/p>\n I’m not sure what reputation sportsmen have in America; in this country, footballers in particular are rapidly acquiring a reputation for being overpaid, unsportsmanlike prima donnas. But when one has a domestic crisis, whether it’s his or her fault or not, I don’t see why they should have to retire from public view and then make a grovelling apology to the public. Unless (as with the recent John Terry scandal) it may affect his relationship with his team-mates, it’s got nothing to do with sport.<\/p>\n