Tiger's apology

Did it really happen?


The curious thing about Tiger Woods isn’t Tiger, frankly.

It’s all of us.

As golf fans and hero worshippers, we put Tiger on such a pedestal, and he dazzled us brilliantly for so long, that it’s very hard for us to deal with the fact that he is human and does what humans do. He lives his life. He tries to make things work. He runs into headwinds and events – like we all do – that slow us down, steer us off track, and sometimes hurl us into unyielding trees.

Today, Tiger took a step to made amends for what hurt his family and disappointed the people who are important to him.

“For all I have done, I am so sorry,” was Tiger’s headline on the 14-minute speech, delivered in a tightly controlled, closely managed event in the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Florida, championship home of the PGA Tour. That statement came midway through his remarks.

What is interesting about the proceedings is that only three journalists were invited to attend, but had no opportunity to ask questions.

What is interesting about the speech is that the only apology delivered was the parents of children who looked up to Tiger. Very deliberately, his language was about being sorry.

His wife, Elin, Tiger said, did not want a verbal apology. She will wait for his behavior to improve. For her, he told us, his improved behavior will be the best apology.

Nevertheless, in emphasizing that this nationally televised event was not a press conference, Tiger’s management team left dangerous questions dangling in the air.

If it wasn’t a press conference, what was it?

If no apology was offered to his fans, his business partners, and his colleagues on the PGA Tour, was an apology actually made?

“I am sorry” means what it says – I am sorry for what happened. It hurts me deeply. Well, we are sure that is exactly how Tiger feels. And, yes, sorry is an expression of regret. But “I am sorry” is definitively not the same as “I apologize.”

An apology means I am sorry for you, too, and I regret that.

Semantics? Possibly.

There was a lot of emotion in Tiger’s talk, which took courage for him to deliver. He did make an unequivocally powerful commitment to living a different kind of life.

But this was also a carefully scripted event.

Apology language, it seems to us, was carefully scripted out.