Tiger Woods Heads Back to Therapy

[printemps]

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Tiger Woods is to return to therapy after he speaks publicly for the first time about his infidelity, according to a letter from PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem that was obtained by The Associated Press.

Finchem's letter to the PGA Tour policy board and other officials explained why Woods chose Friday to make his first public comments, which are to be televised live by all the major networks.

Woods' statement comes during the Match Play Championship, sponsored by Accenture, the first company to drop Woods as a pitchman.

"As we understand it, Tiger's therapy called for a week's break at this time during which he has spent a few days with his children and then will make his statement before returning," Finchem said in a letter Thursday. "Accordingly, there was very little flexibility in the date for the announcement."

Link

[Felix]

From the article cited:

Woods chose Friday to make his first public comments, which are to be televised live by all the major networks.

Yes, we are Tabloid Nation, where reality TV has swallowed up programming, broadcast or cable.

[Bryan Stone]

however you wanna look at it.

this is "must see TV"

video & audio.

This is huge!

[ScarlettP]

Yep. One of the reporters who was commenting on Tiger's 'announcement' went on to say that Golf related shows lost half their audience when Tiger left. Yep. Big news. Much bigger numbers when the little cheater is on. No matter what he does off the green, he keeps the green rolling in when he's on the course.

[Justin Thyme]

Who's Tiger?

[gridbug]

Is his therapist hot?

[printemps]

Feb 19, 2010 13:33:47 GMT -5 @gridbug said:

Is his therapist hot?

He looked dazed.

As anyone would who hasn't had any in three months.

[gridbug]

Only three months? I guess that may be a problem for an addict though...

[printemps]

I hear his therapist is an overweight, 57-year-old Norwegian male.

[Jay]

"Tiger Woods, in what was an almost-15 minute speech today said only one thing about golf: "I do plan to return to golf one day. I just don't know when that day will be."

The rest of his statement was about being sorry and working on repairing the damage to his marriage, foundation and business partners.

"I want to say to each one of you simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior ... Elin and I have started the process of healing the damage." But he said, "My real apology to her will not come in the form of words. It will come from my behavior over time. However, what we say to each other will remain between the two of us."

He wanted to be clear about Thanksgiving night: "Elin never hit me that night or any other night. There has never been an episode of domestic violence in our marriage. Ever. Elin has shown enormous grace and poise throughout this ordeal. Elin deserves praise, not blame. The issue involved here was my repeated irresponsible behavior. I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated."

Fame and fortune played a role, he said. "I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard throughout my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. Thanks to money and fame I didn't have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish. I didn't get to play by different rules."

He asked the media to "please leave" Elin and the kids alone. He spoke of Buddhism and how he had drifted away from it in recent years. And he said, "I will leave for more treatment and more therapy."

His final words: "Today, I want to ask for your help. I ask you to find room in your heart to one day believe in me again.""

content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2010/02/tiger-woods-blames-himself-fame-money/1

[Bryan Stone]

he's a fraud

[snarkalicious]

I am already sick of hearing his so-called "heartfelt apology". If a woman did what he has done, she'd be called a whore and would probably have her kids taken away from her.

[Deleted]

> and would probably have her kids taken away from her.

Not in Hamilton county, Tennessee.

The judges are not that enlightened.

[ScarlettP]

No one ever blamed Elin for allegedly hitting Tiger with a golf club. In fact, most of us had a good giggle about the whole idea.

[frayne56]

I like Tiger, he is a helluva a golfer and good for the sport. What he does off the course is his business and he owes no apologies to anyone except his wife and kids. I hope he comes back in time to play the Masters and kicks the field's ass. That said, after going months without any, he may lack focus but God knows he will have a stiff putter.

[daworm]

Much bigger numbers when the little cheater is on.

I am already sick of hearing his so-called "heartfelt apology". If a woman did what he has done, she'd be called a whore and would probably have her kids taken away from her.

Just a galdarned minute here... Last time I checked, it takes two to tango. Way I see it, at last count, we have 14 women and one guy. All 14 of those women knew full well he was married and had a kid. Yet he's the one getting all of the shit? Sorry ladies, I call bullshit on this one. You can't sit there and call him all sorts of names and ignore the women. They're not victims here.

Now, that said, just what in the hell does one do in sex addiction rehab? Is it some kind of Ludovico treatment? Does he have to read feminist propaganda? I mean for real, for horse I can see methadone doing some good, but for sex?

[gridbug]

Ever wonder what really happened to Dan Martino? They probably use him for aversion therapy.

[Babs]

I think Dan died of aids.

[ScarlettP]

Feb 21, 2010 23:31:39 GMT -5 daworm said:

Last time I checked, it takes two to tango. Way I see it, at last count, we have 14 women and one guy. All 14 of those women knew full well he was married and had a kid. Yet he's the one getting all of the shit? Sorry ladies, I call bullshit on this one. You can't sit there and call him all sorts of names and ignore the women. They're not victims here.

I never said the other women were innocent. If you ask me, they are all gold digging whores. They just wanted a piece of the Tiger. I only feel sorry for the WIFE!

[LimitedRecourse]

"I only feel sorry for the WIFE!"

Me too! If she ever divorces him, I will volunteer to help with her rehab...

[ScarlettP]

I'm sure she'll get enough money in the settlements - whether she stays or goes - to help ease her pain and humiliation of having the whole world know that her husband had a little piece of something else tucked away at every stop on his tour.

[frayne56]

From another forum !

In Defense of Tiger Woods and Good Fun Sex

Why does Tiger Woods owe us an apology?

Let's assume that all the accusations of serial philandering are true. That no waitress was safe from his charms. What right do we, the public, have to be upset?

Woods never presented himself as a pillar of moral virtue. He marketed himself as a great golfer. His job was to knock balls into holes?which he did. He didn't cheat at golf.

Nowhere in America lives a kid who looked up to Tiger because he thought he was faithful to his wife.

Woods wasn't some right-wing hypocrite. He didn't preach. His church was the Chapel of Sports Excellence.

Apologize? What for?

I'm not even sure he owes his wife an apology. According to various reports (although I fathom not how said accounts were sourced), Woods' wife lost interest in sex after having kids. If she turned colder, oh well. Things happen. Tiger didn't have the right to demand that she put out. But he had every right?the duty, even, if there was to be any chance of his keeping his family intact from divorce?to have some fun on the side.

If Mrs. Woods wanted it ten times a day, on the other hand, he owes her an apology. Her. Not us.

Yet the media is tearing Tiger a new one. "The fact that he isn't allowing questions and is positioning his friends and handpicked reporters as props [at his tele-apology] is the height of arrogance," publicist Nick Ragone told The New York Post. "At some point, he'll be shamed into doing a true mea culpa." Another PR flack said: "He didn't think enough of his fans back then [three months ago, when the scandal broke] to do the right thing."

"Mea culpa"? What for? "Think enough of his fans"? How is Tiger's sex life the business of his fans? Although, personally, I was surprised to find out he was straight. But I digress.

More than 150 years ago, Nathaniel Hawthorne posited that America's original sin was its Puritan heritage. Isn't it time we grew up?

Several years ago a book appeared with a provocative title: Against Love. Who could be against love, I wondered, and why? Not the author, Laura Kipnis. "Clearly no one can be against love," she writes. It turned out that she was actually against monogamy. Monogamy, Kipnis argued, stifles passion.

"Adultery is basically a referendum on the sustainability of monogamy, which means a referendum on the basic premises of modern coupled life, namely that desire will persist throughout a decades-long relationship, " writes Kipnis. "If it doesn't apparently you're supposed to either give up sex, or 'work harder' at it. Adultery is the collective?if secretive?rebellion against these strictures, but also a backdoor way of experimenting with possibilities for more gratification than what we're officially allowed, a workshop for wanting "more" that what current social institutions provide."

So why did she choose that title? I don't know for sure, but I bet the fact that opposing love is less controversial than opposing monogamous relationships had something to do with it.

What's surprising is that people act so shocked when you speak out against monogamy. If a make of car failed as often as monogamy does, if it burst into flames half the time you took it out for a ride?that's the divorce rate?it would be recalled. Monogamous marriage is so widely recognized as a lemon that it has spawned countless pop culture parodies ("The Lockhorns" comic strip, the "Married with Children" TV show).

People talk about elderly married couples who are still happy and in love in the hushed, reverential tones used while standing in front of the "Mona Lisa" the first time or witnessing a UFO landing in front of the White House. If a car almost never worked, its manufacturers would be thrown in prison.

Tiger Woods, in other words, is merely the latest of billions of human beings who have been victimized by a crummy, worthless system that has only been around less than one percent of human history, one that everyone hates but is afraid to admit. He hates it, his wife hates it, most of us hate it. Yet we all pay it lip service.

Truth be told, the Tiger Woods "scandal" exists mainly in the minds of media gatekeepers. The topic was discussed in bars and break rooms and cafes, but nary a "what a pig!" has been heard. The reason is obvious: most Americans have cheated. Some have as many lovers as Tiger.

Against logic and reason, the fidelity hoax goes on. Tiger Woods isn't a sex addict?he's a human being who likes to have sex. Lots and lots of sex.

Tiger Woods shouldn't apologize?he should teach classes.

[coffeeshooter]

Feb 19, 2010 16:25:47 GMT -5 Bryan Stone said:

he's a fraud

I agree. The apology was really to his sponsors (former) and the world of gamblers. The Game Of Golf just won't be the same for any of them after this.

[Conservator]

Agree too. He doesn't owe me or you an apology... but he does owe his wife, his kids, and his sponsors one.... Oh yeah, and the millions of kids out there that looked up to him.
And the therapy is a joke... most men would need the same therapy if they had supermodels & pornstars all over them. It's not an addiction... he's a man.