Tiger Hatin'

You can get your torches and pitchforks ready. You can start throwing hideous verbiage in my direction. But please don’t totally hate me. I’m not making any accusations. I’m just asking questions. Questions I haven’t heard anyone ask, but everyone seems to have a potential – if unspoken – answer to.

You may – or may not – have heard of Rocco Mediate. He’s the guy who last year took an allegedly one-legged Tiger Woods to the brink before falling on the 91^st playoff hole at last year’s US Open. He became America’s darling in triumphant defeat. He stood up to the man who is The Man and almost beat him.

I say allegedly for all the wrong reasons and for the purposes of the thoughts and opinions contained herein. Tiger is huge – go to forbes.com and check the list for richest athletes if you don’t believe me. But for every hater, we have to ask another unfortunate question. Is the ‘hate’ because you want to root for the underdog (see: Rudy, Texas Western and Hoosiers [okay, bad example])? Or are you actually hating on Tiger?

I’m not going to compare golf to NASCAR (I’m surprised they don’t have whitewall tires…). But does Hootie really want a guy who looks like the help to be his champion when he opposes women joining his club? And I only bring this up because it seems to be the underlying reasoning for anyone I know who ‘hates’ on Eldrick. For the record, they’re all white people too. (Though admittedly, I don’t talk golf with black people. Usually NBA or NFL. Like I said people, torches and pitchforks.)

There is one particularly poignant moment about this year’s US Open Media coverage. They’ve given press to a letter that Rocco received in the mail last year. In short, John Ray, from Texas, lost his daughter – the baby of the family – the day before her HS graduation. This guy claims to not be a golf fan but found himself watching last year’s Open in the time following the funeral. He ‘became captivated’ and was ‘pulling for’ Rocco, even though he’d never heard of the Greensburg native (SWPa in the House! Wu-Wu!).

Here’s where I don my top hat and cynical handlebar mustache. Was Johnny Boy really captivated by Rocco’s demeanor and how he dealt with the loss? Or was he drawn in by some subconscious want to see the evil Tiger Woods lose? The man who stands for progress like never before. I’d like to finish by apologizing to Mr. Ray. Perhaps your motives were pure. I’m merely asking a question I haven’t heard anyone else ask. Probably for good reason.