Fox Sports radio has a bad habit of emulating its irresponsible partner, Fox News. The other day, two entirely unserious talkaholics on this so-called sports network had on a guest from VH1 to talk about her antipathy toward Tiger Woods. The problem with this, of course, is that besides the fact that VH1 has nothing to do with sports—let alone have any current connection to music—it seems to specialize in mostly idiotic “reality” programming featuring the kind of low-level divas with personality issues that Woods was accused of playing around with in his off-time.
Let’s be frank for one minute. The media created the hyperactive atmosphere around Woods that allowed floozies to buzz around him like flies. Woods obviously could not—or would not—swat them away. He liked their attention and they were more than willing. He should never have married until he became bored with all the attention, or was too old to play that game. Woods has been receiving such attention since he was still in single digits, like Michael Jackson and many other one-time child celebrities. Many of them are infamous for not quite growing up. Woods has actually done better than most, at least as far as career success is concerned. The difference is that the golf world is unused to such attention. But Woods was something special; he was a black man (much as he is loath to admit it) in a white sport, a game that was played mainly in exclusive country clubs that barred people like Woods from entering save as groundskeepers. And he was great at the game. Not good, great. But it wasn’t enough for the media to simply keep score; unlike football and other sports where the focus was more on the team success, the focus of golf is entirely on the individual—and Woods had far more than his fair share. His fellow golfers were often vocally envious of the attention he received, even when it helped raise attendance and paydays. But it came at a cost. It was like a drug where the highs are very high, and the lows are very low.
Michelle Wie was also a victim of the air of unreality created by the media; 60 Minutes had not one, but two segments about her. When she turned pro at 16, the hype was such that Nike made her the highest paid women’s golfer before she played even one round of professional golf. This didn’t translate into success on the golf course; at a time when Morgan Pressel became the youngest LPGA player to win a major championship at age 18, Wie was struggling to even break par, let alone make a cut. Her foolish desire to play in PGA events where she continually embarrassed herself (such as at the John Deere Classic—one of the low-end events—where she had to be carted off the course for heat exhaustion) was driven in part by a hyperactive media which fueled the immature Wie’s bloated egotism. By the time she (finally) won her first tournament after four years as a professional, she was a virtual laughing stock and mere object of cynical curiosity: How bad could she possibly get? For her part Wie could never quite come to grips with the fact that the media was wrong: She wasn’t that great. She wasn’t the next Tiger Woods. And her immaturity hasn’t left her, either. At the Kia Classic a few months ago, Wie grounded her club in a hazard, which cost her two shots and $90,000. This wasn’t the first time Wie forgot to read the rule book; this was the third time she had been cited for grounding in her career, and on another occasion forgot to sign her score card after the final round. After this past episode, Wie spent more than ten minutes arguing with rules officials, even though the infraction was plain to everyone but her. When it became clear there was going to be no reversal, Wie began to break down in tears, like a spoiled little girl who thought she could lie her way out of it. How do I know this? The Golf Channel had a camera crew inside the officials’ tent, recording every wretched word of it. That is what media “adulation” will get you.
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