Tiger Deserves Every Bit of Scrutiny

Star athletes always seem to take some sort of a step back in their respective careers.

Guys like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Kobe Bryant, and Alex Rodriguez all experienced a fall from grace. However none of those examples amount to what Tiger Woods has squandered in just a matter of weeks.

Woods was one of the most respected athletes in the world two weeks ago. He was on top of his game and the outright best golfer of his generation. He had tons of endorsements that made up 90% of his earnings.

He foolishly threw that all away by getting caught up in the fame. He was running around with numerous women, possibly up to nine, while his wife was who knows where.

Now he's a punching bag of the media, and he deserves every punch.

Since all of this has been going on Woods has acted like a coward in handling this situation. He has hid behind his website and not even made one single public apology. For all we know his apology on his website may have been completely written by an adviser.

Woods has now said that he will take an indefinite leave of absence from golf to focus on his issues. That's a small step in the right direction, but he still has a ton of work to do before I ever think about respecting him again.

Even before all of this went on I still had less respect for him than the average fan. Sure, I thought he was the best golfer in the world, but I thought he acted like a child when things didn't go his way on the golf course. Slamming his golf clubs in disgust and yelling out profanities will not earn you much respect from me. Especially on a golf course where etiquette is pretty important.

It's going to be close to impossible for Woods to return to his dominance that he once had. To be frank, I don't see how he'll ever face the media again. He rarely spoke with the media before anyway.

This whole situation has dominated the sports news wire for the last two weeks now and I'm sick of hearing it. This will be the only thing you hear from me about the situation. Draw your own conclusions, but all of the negativity that Tiger Woods receives from this is well deserved.