Lord Have Mercy

I pay such scant attention to American media that I am often caught off guard. Apparently over the last month, Tiger Woods has been in trouble. I learned this yesterday at a Christmas lunch from female colleagues. Where had I been in the last month? I tried to recall, oh yes, on the seventh and twelfth floors of Children’s Hospital with a sick child from South Africa. Naturally my colleagues gave me the details of Tiger Woods over lunch and then expressed their outrage at him. “Wait a minute” I said unwisely. “I never believed he had a squeaky clean reputation to begin with, he’s a guy for a start, I think it is the American public who have conjured this squeaky clean image and then have enjoyed the feeding frenzy when Woods betrayed their illusion. All this moral outrage is wonderful and convenient because we all come off looking better than he does”. I understand Woods lost his father, probably the most solid anchor in his life. Having affairs with prostitutes is not a sign of badness, but perhaps a symptom of loneliness, confusion and fear. Woods is a tragic icon because of how we have exploited him. Here is a boy who was never allowed to grow up, was marketed and sold to the highest of bidders and now, sadly in his most vulnerable state, we continue to feast off the remains of his sadness. As Anais Nin once wrote “we don’t see things as they are, we see thing as we are”.