I do believe I talked my parents into purchasing a subscription to Golf Digest Magazine for me way back in 1966 about the time I was introduced to the game as a 13-year-old caddie. Along with Golf Magazine, it was one of the two popular golfing monthlies with features on the stars of the game, great golf courses, helpful tips and interviews. I recall that I used to read both of those golf monthlies from cover to cover.
Nowadays, I still have Golf Digest delivered to my mailbox although I don”t read it as thoroughly as I once did. In fact, I”ve been kind of down on Golf Digest of late. GD seems to me to be more about fluff than substance. For instance, the current edition of Golf Digest has backup quarterback Johnny Manziel on the cover. Earlier this year, Wayne Gretzky”s healthy looking daughter made the cover although she doesn”t play golf. Surfer girl Stephanie Gilmore is featured on the Table of Contents page this month. Just another edition with lots of fluff.
I read a handful of articles in GD last week and then threw it on the stack with our other family magazines — Time, Rolling Stone, and InStyle. I read a story about the drought and was stunned by a recent picture of the browned-out fairways of Pasatiempo. The Undercover Pro had an interesting piece about withdrawing from tournaments. The travel feature about the Cayman Islands was interesting as was the Jack Nicklaus article about course strategy. I skipped the rest of the magazine as I figured articles about dogs and a fake Tiger Woods interview were a waste of my time. Little did I know ?
Just a few days ago, I found myself looking through that stack of old magazines once again. A media firestorm had broken out regarding the satirical article in GD about Tiger Woods. Even though I didn”t think an article by Dan Jenkins entitled “My (Fake) Q&A with Tiger” warranted one moment of my attention, it obviously had an impact on one well-known reader, namely 14-time major champion Tiger Woods. Woods released a statement about the article that included the commentary that it was “a grudge-fueled piece of character assassination” and added that he was upset with “the sheer nastiness of the attack.” I knew I had to relocate my December issue of Golf Digest to see what the big deal was all about.
Dan Jenkins is one of golf”s top journalists. He played collegiate golf in the 1940s at TCU. Upon graduation, he became a sports writer for the Fort Worth Press and the Dallas Times. He wrote monthly columns for Playboy and Sports Illustrated as well as books such as Semi-Tough and the colorful golf novel, The Dogged Victims of Inexorable Fate. Jenkins is an old-school journalist who was very close with Fort Worth local Ben Hogan. He has been inducted into the writer”s wing of the World Golf Hall of Fame. He turns 85 years old on Dec. 2, and he has a career long reputation for being funny, witty and an outstanding journalist. When Tiger Woods was at the height of his abilities, Jenkins wrote that the only things that could keep Woods from eclipsing Jack Nicklaus” mark of 18 majors would be a bad back or a bad marriage.
Jenkins” article in Golf Digest is a four-page piece of satirical writing. As I originally thought, it”s pure fluff. There is a picture of an actor made to look like Tiger taking a selfie. There”s also a picture of pseudo-Tiger checking out a dent in a Cadillac Escalade, the style of car that hit that fire hydrant a few Thanksgivings ago. The article is written in an interview format with questions and answers that are satirical at best, sophomoric at worst.
For instance, Jenkins supposedly asks Tiger about his late father”s remark that he would have a bigger impact upon the world than Gandhi. Pseudo-Tiger responds by saying, “I looked for Gandhi in the record book and couldn”t find him. But I didn”t go as far back as Middlecoff, Demaret and those guys.” Another question asked, “Who would you rather run over in a car first, Brandel Chamblee or me?” Pseudo-Tiger responds with “Who”s Brandel Chamblee? How many majors has he won? How many majors has he even played?” When Jenkins asks why Tiger has fired so many others in his circle, but hasn”t yet fired his longtime manager, pseudo-Tiger responds by stating, “I”ll probably get around to it. I like to fire people. It gives me something to do when I”m not shaping my shots.”
Jenkins” (Fake) Q&A with Tiger breaks no new ground, makes no new accusations, and pretty much paints Woods as a self-centered golfer lacking in people skills. Even the most literal of readers can tell it”s meant to be satirical, meant to be funny. After reading it several times over, I still conclude that it”s pure fluff and turned out to be a waste of my time. Had Tiger Woods never made such a big deal about it, millions of readers like myself would have never had an ounce of awareness of its contents.
Sorry to say, but I”ve got to put Tiger Woods down for a big triple-bogey on this one. Once again, this is one of those instances when The Great Striped One is attempting to control the media and what is written about him. This behavior began way back in April of 1997 when the Charles Pierce article in Gentleman”s Quarterly resulted in Tiger and his team trying to ruin Pierce”s career. Pierce”s crime was repeating off-color jokes that Woods had told him while they were driving in a limousine during the interview session. A serious Boston-area journalist with a weekly show on NPR, Pierce had the notes and the tapes to prove his verbatim account. From that moment forward, Woods has had an aloof and distant approach to the media.
Tiger Woods” off-color jokes in 1997 were the product of being a 22-year-old. From my weak perspective, they were funny. They lacked cruelty or negativity. His complaints about an old golf writer and his satirical piece in 2014 smacks of a bitter, aging, solitary figure who has been eclipsed by the Rory McIlroy generation. Fans of the game have always appreciated the greats of golf once they were past their prime. Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Chick Evans, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan were beloved by fans of a different era. Nowadays, we admire the former greats of the game such as Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino and Billy Casper. We even seem to like Greg Norman and Nick Faldo. People such as Tiger Woods don”t necessarily need to take advice from me, but my one and only thought is “Lighten up, would you?” Does Woods really want the latest generation of fans to someday view him as bitter, self-centered and no longer relevant? Does he really want his fans to see him as old and cranky? Does he realize that his glass is 90-percent full, not 10-percent empty?
