Tiger Woods screwed up. The once-classy golfer got cocky, whored around and potentially decimated any chance of a happy relationship with his blazing hot wife and gorgeous children.
Woods will forever be remembered as a good golfer who managed to relocate his entire brain to his groin and still manage to look normal in golf slacks.
On Feb. 19, Woods apologized for his selfish thoughtlessness to a small group of friends and reporters. Dumb move, Woods. One of many, actually (I believe some of the others were named Holly, Mindy, Jamie and Cori).
First of all, if Woods actually wanted to apologize, he would have held an open press conference. Talking to your friends and your mom - people who already know and like you - is wimpy. He essentially poked his head out of his golf hole of shame when he really should have stood up in front of the public and taken the attention like the man that he apparently is in his personal life.
Second, the apology itself was 14 minutes of blank-stared, heavily scripted awkwardness. If you plan on reading a script, at least come up with something less lame than repeating, "I am deeply sorry" over and over again. Every single athlete, actor and politician that has messed up on this grand of a scale before Woods has given the exact same speech. It's old.
Finally, I'm confused as to what Woods is actually apologizing for. If he wants to stick his nine iron in someone's 18th hole that isn't his wife's, that is totally an issue between him and his family. Woods is a golfer, not some sort of saintly advocate for fidelity and loyalty. If he had been having affairs with the wives and daughters of PGA officials, everything would be different. This garden-variety case of selfish and stupid infidelity requires no further explanation.
Woods used a portion of his 14 minutes to talk about the impact his personal transgressions had on his charity, creatively named The Tiger Woods Foundation. Last time I checked, money from a morally upright golf champ and an unfaithful weasel looks, feels and works the same. If anything, Woods should use this blemish in his life as an opportunity to devote more of himself to his community service; I'm willing to bet he hasn't felt the warm and fuzzy feeling associated with happiness and helping people in a while.
Woods owes the public nothing. Frankly, he's just another blip on the "hypersexual jerks who get famous and feel entitled to make the world their booty call" radar (think John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, etc.). All he needs to do is salvage the remains of his family and get back on the golf course so the sport doesn't regress from "kind of dry" to its pre-Tiger status of "sleep-inducing."
For the sake of the sport, Woods, keep it in your pants and out of the public eye.