December 02, 2009

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright






Fearful symmetry indeed. One thing I have to say at the outset, it's hard to see this story as completely tragic. Okay, I know, the kids, the kids. But leaving the kids to one side for a moment...


Also, I do understand it's no one's business except Tiger & Elin's, but where's the fun in that? Anyway, my approach is to offer an angle on the story-within-the-story, to adduce what general truths about humanity might be divined from a careful scrutiny of Tiger's current predicament. And writing about the Federal Reserve Bank gets a little dry.

Tiger's wife Elin is a model (or was, till she struck it rich) from Sweden. She has a brother and a twin sister. That latter fact raises fun speculations. Elin (pronounced Elin) is 29. She and Tiger were married in 2004 on the 19th hole of a golf course in Barbados. Elin is the father of Tiger's two children, neither of which is named Tiger.

The Other Women, so far: Rachel Uchitel, 34, a "club promoter;" Jaimee Grubbs, 24, a cocktail waitress and reality show contestant; Kalika Moquin, 27, "marketing manager" for The Bank night club in Las Vegas. To date, only Rachel is represented by Gloria Allred. I surmise, therefore, she probably has the best story. Gloria will help her roll the story out in a maximally profitable way, while also making sure that Rachel is not "victimized" or "stigmatized" as Other Women so often are, according to Gloria. This is Gloria's niche practice: the representation of people who have no need for a lawyer but are on the periphery of cases involving people who do. Anyway, the dignity of the women involved is important. I note that they are talking in terms of "affairs" or even "relationships" to describe the random hook-ups with Tiger they've enjoyed over the last couple of years. This is true in about the same sense that Tiger has a "relationship" with his rental car while he's in town.

Tiger is 33, by the way. The mean age of Elin, Rachel, Jaimee and Kalika is 28.5. I think this makes things somewhat easier for Elin, although Jaimee, the reality TV show contestant and cocktail waitress, is an outlier who pulls the sample's average down somewhat, which doesn't help Tiger's cause.

Most of these affairs seem to be of fairly recent vintage, starting up after his two children were born. Here's my take on what's been going on: Elin has been busy a lot with the two kids at home in the mansion in Windemere, Florida. Tiger's a touring professional with an awful lot of money and a great deal of time on his hands when he's on the road. He stays in hotels and goes to restaurants and night clubs. There he might meet club promoters, cocktail waitresses and marketing managers with plumped lips and saline (by volume) in their chests equal to the displacement of the Titanic. These "hospitality workers" are on the payroll to doll up the place. To relieve the stress and boredom of life on the road, Tiger started plunking these gals whenever he was in town. While Tiger himself is a Stanford man, it was probably a matter of supreme irrelevance to him whether Rachel, Jaimee or Kalika (or Elin, for that matter) was a member of Mensa.

Tiger apparently told Kalika that married life had gotten a little dreary, which can happen with a couple of rug rats and the same wife he'd already been married to for five whole years. Ultimately, it's a question of philosophy. As to what happened that night at 2 am between Elin & Tiger, maybe what transpired is that Elin slipped Tiger an Ambien as truth serum and went to work on him while he was in a semi-hypnotic state. It's doubtful that rumors of Rachel, Jaimee and Kalika had entirely escaped Elin's attention. Tiger might have been out of it enough to confess to too much, but not so sideways that he couldn't tell it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Thus, his bumpy ride down to the street, with Elin, still interested in continuing the interview, giving chase while brandishing (what else?) a golf club.

It's only a theory. Depending on what's in the prenuptial agreement, we may or may not find out what really happened. The police cannot force either party to testify against themselves nor the other party (husband and wife privilege).

As to what the future holds, it probably depends in part (but not entirely) on how many other women sashay forth from behind the velvet ropes in night clubs, bars and hospitality suites. The PGA tour goes pretty much everywhere, after all, and there is no name bigger than Tiger's.

He has neither sunk lower, nor risen higher, in my personal estimation. He's obviously a guy who likes to cat around. This is hardly unique, although for some reason everybody always pretends in these situations, including the guy who gets caught, that it is unusual. If Elin and Tiger patch it up this time, Tiger will be back on the prowl in no time, burning brightly in the forest of the night. It's his nature, of course, although currently he's apologizing for it. Gillette is insisting on that, I'm sure. Elin will have choices to make. She's learning, along with the rest of us, what the guy she married is really like. Life might have looked like one long, green fairway a few years ago, but now the ball has landed squarely in the rough.

2 comments:

  1. hammerud5:56 PM

    "Tiger's a touring professional with an awful lot of money and a great deal of time on his hands.." This set the stage for the infidelity, but the key is found in a scripture in the Book of Ecclesiastes, which states, "unless sentence against an evil work is exercised speedily, the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil." You may not agree that what he did was evil, but it is clear that Tiger did not control and judge his thoughts, something Scripture says we are capable of doing. An insightful person once said, " We can't stop the birds from flying over our heads, but we can stop them from building a nest in our hair."

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  2. Anonymous9:04 AM

    Trifles!

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