Harry How
LORNE RUBENSTEIN -- Here's the lowdown on Tiger Woods's showdown with the media, first impressions anyway. It was a draw, if anybody was expecting a winner.
Woods didn't set any ground rules and he took every question although he didn't answer the more personal ones all that directly. He answered factual questions with factual answers. Asked if his wife Elin would be here, he said she wouldn't. Asked is his family supported his decision to play the Masters, he said he's had a lot of great support.
But he didn't say whether his wife supported his decision.
Woods said again, as he did on Feb. 19th in his statement - when he wasn't asked about it - that he's never taken human growth hormone or any performance-enhancing drugs. He said time and time again that he was living a lie and that he's trying every day to get better and better. He said that he wants to help more people who have trouble helping themselves--which, he said, was his story. And if he wins more championships along the way, "so be it." That could sound like an epiphany, or it could sound scripted. I'll have to ponder about that.
I've been interested in how he managed to shoot 66 in a major or any tournament, for that matter, go out and live his lie at night and then speak about the importance of family. I asked him how he was able to rationalize this behaviour in his own mind, but I'm not sure he understands the meaning of the word "rationalize." He did refer obliquely to how out of touch he was with himself, and that he didn't know this until he went into rehab.
I feel a sense of unreality about the whole thing. There's no way to reach Tiger on an emotional level. Maybe that happened during his 45- day stint in rehab, which he's continuing. It won't happen in a media room interview. And one more thing: I do think it took some guts for Tiger in these last months to step up to the plate and say for all the world to hear that he's made a lot of mistakes and some "incredibly bad decisions." He said all that again today, and it's starting to look like he means it and he means to change himself for the better.