I told a friend of mine that Tiger Woods would make his return to the golf course at the Masters, long before the world’s best golfer made the announcement.
If you’ve watched a tournament from Augusta National, it’s obvious why Woods chose this venue to make his much anticipated return.
The people running the Masters don’t tolerate anything that puts their tournament in a bad light.
Just ask Gary McCord, the CBS golf analyst who in 1994 tried to explain how fast the Augusta National greens were.
McCord said the club “doesn’t cut the greens, it uses bikini wax.” He said the lumpy terrain looks “like body bags.”
That was his last Masters.
For Woods, Augusta National is a safe haven, a place where everything around him will be as controlled as a visit from President Obama.
Once he parks his car, he’ll go to the clubhouse. But not just any clubhouse.
Upstairs, above the one where golfers will dress, Woods will share a clubhouse with past Masters’ champions.
Private dressing quarters is just the beginning of Woods’ isolation. A club member emcees the player interviews at Augusta National.
When Woods faces the media, he’ll have Augusta’s version of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs beside him manipulating the proceedings.
To say the treatment the emcee gives someone like Woods is preferential is an obvious understatement.
During the four-day event, no one in the gallery will be allowed to say anything remotely critical of Woods. Should someone step over that line, they’ll be escorted out the gate and never allowed back in.
Augusta National provides Woods the perfect setting to continue hiding from reality, a glorious example of a man that hasn’t mustered the courage to face the tough questions or his harshest critics.
But what happens after the tournament is over and Woods is no longer shielded by the cocoon of Augusta?
Once he drives away from Augusta on Sunday afternoon, the real world beckons, the one where public figures have to answer tough questions about their transgressions, regardless of how entitled they believe themselves to be.
Some are of the opinion Woods doesn’t have to answer the legitimate questions that have arisen since the accident on November 25 opened the door to public scrutiny.
Oh yes he does.
Instead of the contrived, robotic public “apology” he gave in February or the limited number of softball questions he’s fielded in the few interviews he’s given since then, Woods will eventually have to man up and face the music.
And unless the professional sports media stops tippy-toeing around and start doing their jobs, Woods will continue to believe he’s above it all.
The media has never given prominent sports figures a pass before. Ask Michael Vick, Plaxico Burress and Kobe Bryant if they got the same treatment Woods is getting now.
If Woods wants a full pardon he has to stop ducking the tough questions and come clean – completely clean.
He won’t come clean this week because he doesn’t have to, but he doesn’t reside at Augusta, and he’ll eventually have to emerge from that cocoon he’s so comfortably wrapped in.
