Thursday 10 December, 2009

Sport

By Charles Gardner

A sports idol elevated to the stratosphere by marketing moguls and an adoring public has come crashing down to earth in humiliating circumstances.

I refer, of course, to golf superstar Tiger Woods who crashed his Cadillac SUV into a fire hydrant and tree outside his Florida mansion. There’s nothing particularly unusual about that, perhaps, except that he has as a result become embroiled in a sordid scandal even soap opera scriptwriters couldn’t have dreamed up.

The accident apparently followed a heated argument with Swedish wife Elin over alleged affairs, though there are also rumours that he had overdosed on prescription drugs. Early reports suggested she had helped to rescue him by smashing the car windows with a golf club (driver?), but it later emerged that her intentions were likely to have been more malicious.

I should know, for golf clubs, especially drivers, are ideal instruments with which to vent one’s anger. When I was learning the game as a youngster in South Africa, I would quite often hurl my club towards some unsuspecting tree after a bad shot though my dad soon tempered my bad behaviour with his gentle scolding.

Tiger has wandered off the straight and narrow fairway and found the rough.

Yes, the temptation to make fun of all these bizarre revelations is strong, but I don’t wish to go further down that avenue because I do want to make a serious point. And that is not to start pointing fingers, no matter how degrading I might perceive Tiger’s behaviour to be.

The trouble is we are in the age of the media, when image is everything. It’s all about marketing products to capture our imagination and encourage us all to part with our hard-earned cash.

Tiger Woods is a hugely talented golfer – I watched him live myself at Lytham St Anne’s in 1996 before he hit the headlines with his staggering 12-shot win in the 1997 U.S. Masters.

But he has been marketed as the epitome of cool, calm, absolutely focussed winner, provoking the wonder, adoration and envy of the masses and earning millions in the process. And they heaped further pressure on the 33-year-old American by suggesting he was the perfect squeaky clean role model for aspiring sportspeople everywhere.

But as ex-Middlesex cricket captain Ed Smith said in a radio interview, it’s almost inevitable that such idols will come crashing down at some stage. The pressure of maintaining perfect poise in the public eye over a protracted period is just too much.

Actually, no-one can live up to that image; for no-one is perfect. Yes, the Bible teaches that we are made in God’s image, but sin has got the better of us all – and there is only one way out.

I grew up wanting to emulate the great South African golfer Gary Player – certainly in terms of success on the course. I didn’t manage that, but I was privileged to have experienced perhaps the next best thing – interviewing him and reporting on his exploits in various major European tournaments during the late 1970s.

But Player was a fine role model in other ways too – for example, he was very much a family man (with five children) who rated evangelist Billy Graham among his heroes and who believed that only what you did for Christ would have a lasting impact on the world.

Tiger is still in his prime, but eclipsing Jack Nicklaus’s all-time record of 18 majors will no longer be the fait accompli everyone had been predicting.

Because if the rumours now circulating are anywhere near the truth, he is already suffering under the immense strain of having so much expected of him. But records aren’t everything. What matters is the soul of Tiger Woods – and there is a way out of the deep ‘bunker’ he has found himself in.

I have to challenge the dismissive comment of porn king Hugh Hefner who, speaking on the subject, said “the notion that monogamy lasts forever is a wish”. Marriage is a most wonderful, exhilarating and delightful gift from God, and it is indeed possible to be faithful – with His help!

Forgiveness is possible with true repentance (admission of wrongdoing accompanied by simultaneous action in putting things right).

Some 3,000 years ago Christ’s ancestor David committed adultery and murder, but then repented of his evil deeds and became the greatest king who has ever lived.

If Tiger should humble himself before Christ, the Lord of glory, he will find a fairway of forgiveness, restoration and a whole new life.

Photo: Keith Allison under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0