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When One Is Owned By His Money, Nothing Else Matters, Everyone Is Infected, All Problems Reducible To Dollars

I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves. I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect. I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family. Those feelings should be shared by us alone.

Tiger Woods

Windermere, Florida

Protecting The Brand — No Matter The Cost

For a nation prone to believe that greedy bankers and corrupt politicians are responsible for our nation’s immense and growing problems today, the misadventures of Tiger Woods presents an opportunity for a much-needed reality check. Many of those who condemn Mr. Woods’ alleged sexual adventures speak with forked-tongue — for Woods behavior fits well within our nation’s Laissez-faire attitudes toward wealth, accountability, personal responsibility and fidelity.

“Tiger Woods used his wealth and loyal friends to conceal his adulterous lifestyle, seducing his mistresses with gifts and confessions of love to keep them quiet.

The billionaire golfer’s bodyguards approached women in nightclubs on his behalf and he would turn to close business allies for help arranging later meetings.

Carly Crawford
Herald Sun
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Those who think Woods out of bounds might look in the mirror before offering condemnation.

We think Tiger Woods has been wronged. Not just by a tabloid press that appears to be determined to force him into submission, but equally by his advisers, lawyers, branding specialists and others dependent on Tiger’s income. It is they who failed to tell him an enduring truth: That the world would forgive him for his indiscretions had he asked them to do so.

He did not choose that path. Thus the decision was made to protect the brand, not the person, or the family, or the golfing legacy. From that moment, the opportunity to get out front of the story, to be as one with millions of suffering Americans, was gone.

There is another truth best not ignored, perhaps not spoken aloud in his embattled camp. It is that his fans and countrymen are not at all likely to forgive him for paying off everyone in sight to maintain their loyalty, or their silence. Such behavior is not a sign of character, but the heavy hand of a despot.

The prospects for Mr. Woods’ full recovery do not appear very good in light of a stream of new revelations. What’s flowing out in the media are details of actions and decisions that reveal business judgments where character is demanded. He will not easily escape public condemnation, nor long ignore the media circus now obtained. We are thus saddened as much for him, as by him.

US Weekly magazine printed a report alleging that Woods had an affair with Jaimee Grubbs as well as text of an alleged voice mail message left on Grubbs answering machine. Certainly it would seem money ought to be able to make this sort of problem go away.

“Hey, it’s Tiger — I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and may be calling you.

“So if you can, please take your name off that. … Just have it as a number on the voice mail. Just have it as your telephone number. That’s it, OK? You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye.”

From Aspiration To Brand

For Tiger Woods, who came to fame and fortune by way of hard work and great gifts, the aspirations of youth, the loving tutelage of a devoted father, and the realities of his athletic potential, the road from ordinary means to wealth looked easy. Win tournaments, win adulation, win endorsement contracts, and win big in life. It’s simple. It’s the American dream. But it’s all a lie.

In big time athletics, business and entertainment, optimizing one’s economic value is accomplished by branding. Nobody explains at the outset what the cost will be to the living soul behind the brand — so there is an assumption that branding, and the revenues realizable through branding, are all positive.

Money Machine

For Tiger Woods, the journey he set out upon, to become perhaps the greatest golfer of all time, has been distorted to favor wealth accumulation. He may not have intentionally chosen to make of himself a brand, but that is what he did after that glorious day at Augusta when he decisively earned his first Masters and it’s emblematic green jacket — and the right to sell his celebrity.

With agent at hand, endorsements in the offing, the fine young man who took golf by storm, gave way to a branded and juridical Tiger Woods — someone who looked like him, talked like him, but whose life was about wealth — no matter the cost to him his family, or his historic legacy. From that moment on, Tiger Woods, the earnest and loving son, became Tiger Woods the money machine.

Tiger’s Mirror Reflects America

That said, Tiger Woods’ misadventures provide a timely reminder about ourselves — and our preoccupation with that which is temporal, material and largely inconsequential. For Woods’ amoral misadventures tell a cautionary tale about his, and our, immense adoration of money at the expense of all else in our lives, relationships and national aspirations. What it revels is the absence of a responsible adult — or a man no longer capable of behaving in ways for which he is willing to be accountable.

What’s worthy of discussion in the Woods matter are not to be found in the events, claims or tabloid coverage, but in the role money and wealth have played in corrupting both Mr. Woods and professional athletics. Tiger Woods is comprised of three very different entities, the person, an extraordinary athlete and a fungible and valuable brand.

The Men Behind The Curtain

What’s happening before the world is the discarding of Tiger Woods the person in favor of saving as much as possible of the brand. Thus Woods makes himself dependent upon outsiders for what has become a very public battle within  his family. Should the allegations that he is paying his wife $5 million dollars to stay at his side prove to be true, or that his collective lady friends are effectively employees of the Woods Brand –  as long as they remain silent — it reveals a perverse sense of values driven by maintaining the perceptions of propriety and privacy while engaging in the very opposite.

What’s happening is the real-life equivalent of the Wizard of Oz story when the great oracle is revealed to be nothing more than a scared little man surrounded by huffing and puffing machines, loud sounds and emphatic voices. For it is not Woods’ misdeeds that portend a bad outcome to his legacy to game and nation, but his transmogrification from a good man into an acquisitive and amoral bank determined to buy anything and everything that threatens the money machine.

Decoding The Message

The Woods brand demands that the illusion be protected through message control and spin. The result produced  this statement posted on the Woods website:

Tiger Woods: Public Statement

“I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and behavior my family deserves. I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family. These feelings should be shared by us alone.”

Those familiar with legalese and obfuscation to avoid reality know that such carefully chosen words are the product of many very bright and well compensated experts in brand management. Those who deal with the big dogs know that such statements come at great cost, perhaps as much as $10,000 a word. Every word is chosen with immense care, not for what it reveals, but for what is conceals.

What such carefully crafted words offer in terms of their connotative content is not to be confused with their denotative content. So, at far less cost, a translation into plain language, even an imperfect one, may offer some insight into what’s really going on.

Here’s one way of parsing what Mr. Woods said.

Plain Language Equivalent

“I have been caught and I’m damned embarrassed.

I am an immensely skilled golfer, so I cannot be expected to take my family obligations as seriously as my professional activities.

I’m reexamining my actions in the light of insight being provided by my lawyers, handlers, managers and agents.

I will decide later whether any changes in my attitudes, commitments or actions are warranted.

So all should understand that though I have made certain questionable choices and decisions, I do not agree to be bound by the consequences.”

David Parsons contributed ideas to this essay.