Tiger Woods said all the right things during his statement Friday morning. We can only hope he believes and means them.
He seemed contrite and sincere at times, but much of the nearly 15-minute statement seemed staged and scripted. He's had nearly three months to think about what he wanted to say yet brought a couple pieces of paper that he repeatedly looked down at before speaking. A couple notes to make sure you don't forget something is one thing, but he nearly read off the paper, and was pretty robotic as he did. Who knows if they were even his words. And hugging people sitting in the front row after he spoke had to be premeditated. After you read a statement you usually walk off the stage. You have to figure he'd already seen these people before walking to the podium, or was going to see them shortly after. It sure looked like a contrived attempt to show emotion. Placing his hand over his heart on one occasion seemed insincere, and as John Daly pointed out on his Twitter account, where was Tiger's wedding ring? From what I could see he wasn't wearing it.
That being said, let's hope he tries to live up to the words. He admitted to cheating on his wife and apologized to several people and groups for it, he admitted needs help and has been getting it, he said it means more to have character and decency than to achieve athletic greatness, he admitted believed he could live by different standards and different rules than most, he said when he returns to golf he needs to make his behavior more respectful of the game, and and he said he wants to give reason for people to believe in him again. The last two are important because it seems he might be taking his role as a role model to heart and that in itself will lead to better actions on and off the court.
The most surprising and disappointing thing he said was he doesn't know when he'll return to golf, and isn't even sure if it will be this year. Once he believes he has his personal affairs in order, hopefully he'll return to make the game more intriguing again, sooner than later.
