The Swinger (Book Review)

Just finished The Swinger about Tiger Woods/Not Tiger Woods.  It's a quick read, and funny, and has lots of great historical golf references that J will appreciate.  I didn't like the ending.  What I got from the book other than some shaking my head and some laughs is that we should fight the tendency in today's culture to make everything black and white.  It's like our culture is on a mission to stamp out gray.  We have to put everything in a neat little bucket.  Everything must be categorized.  Good/bad, best/worst, black/white.

I never was on board with J's theory that Woods was the evil anti-christ and I still don't.  Maybe he is.  I doubt it.  What this book made me think about is what would happen if you were raised by parents who told you that you were different from everybody else from childhood.  Then you had nothing but unbroken success at every level.  People fawned over you and told you how great you were.  Then, you got fabulously rich and famous and powerful.  You're raking in over $100 million a year.  Boats, planes, you name it, its yours.

So, Tiger Woods has major character flaws.  He's a little warped from our view.  He considered the tour players adversaries and didn't care to be friends.  He was too focused and single-minded to notice the fans or care.  His ego ran away and he felt entitled to do whatever came to mind.  He broke his marriage vows many times over.  He thought he could change coaches without consequences.  This is the world he and his parents and his success created.  How could he do wrong or go wrong?  If you know nothing but success, how do you consider failure?

I don't think Tiger Woods is evil.  He is the ultimate creation of the celebrity culture; mega-talented, driven, flawed, but mostly interesting.  He got full of himself (how could he not), felt he was indestructible, and rushed into his Waterloo without ever thinking it could happen.  But, he probably loves his kids, probably loved his parents, is probably fun to be around if you know him, and has made a huge difference in many kids lives through his foundations and schools.  He's not black, or white, he's just an interesting color of gray.  He's done lots of bad and lots of good.  He's just a person who had big success and big failure.  He'll have to figure out the rest of his life like everybody else.  But, not the anti-christ.

And, if you ask me, I would say the world is not a better place now that Tiger Woods has fallen.  I miss the dominance, the skill, the focus, the confidence, even the f-bombs, even the glares, even the lack of sportsmanship.  He was better, he was arrogant, he carried the sport.  Now what?

S