I suppose I would actually need to follow golf or at least Tiget Woods™ to understand the connection.  Though why I need to spend my time researcing information on some guy who wanders around in fields chasing a ball, only to hit it with a stick every time he finds it, is beyond me.

The vast majority of relationships involve some amount of cheating from either (or both!) party, according to all the statistics I’ve seen on the subject.

I’m guessing the appeal of this sort of story is that it humanizes someone who people idolize, which is either cause for a crisis of faith (in people who need to put someone on a pedestal) or shadenfreude (for people who resent them).

I hope for the president’s sake that there aren’t photos of him with Tiger Woods before this magazine came out. Or else I’m sure you are right. The next big story on Faux News will be, “Why do black men cheat?” As if republicans don’t.

I look forward to the National Dialogue as well.  Will beer be served?  Or is that Just. Not. Done. on the golf/country club circuit?

More to the point, if Elin went after him with a golf club, I don’t see why she shouldn’t be arrested, unless Tiger was hitting her as well.  He’s big and I can see her needing a weapon to defend herself.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Woods, the reason this is a big deal (in the sports world, anyway) is that Woods has gone to incredible lengths to appear superhuman and calculated.  There were no outward signs of any emotions (aside from the on-course fist pump and occasional on-course expletive) or failings.  He was literally portrayed as this robotic perfect sporting machine whose sole goal was to trample anyone who got in his way on the golf course.  He and Nike went a long way to cultivate the image and protect his privacy in order to maintain the giant corporate monolith that would be worth a billion dollars.

No one really knows anything about Woods or his wife.  Is it anyone’s business?  Not really.  I only care about him on the golf course.  But the veneer has slowly eroded off of the Woods’ facade of invisibility, from the death of his father (which led to an on-course breakdown after he won The Open several years ago) to this.

In the big scheme of things, another celebrity cheated because he could.

Does being rich ‘n famous compel people to cheat?  Or is the kind of person who would cheat more likely to be rich ‘n famous?  Or are the rates of cheating among the rich ‘n famous about the same as the among the proles, but we’re more aware of their cheating because they’re rich ‘n famous?  Or all of these things?  Or something else altogether?...

I think we’re all aware of enough miscarriages of justice to understand why Tiger Woods might want to protect his wife if he felt that her rage was justified.

MikeEss: My personal opinion is that we probably just know more about rich & famous people and so tend to know when they cheat or not. Again, most couples end up with one or both parties cheating at least once. But when it’s a celebrity everybody makes a big deal out of it. Plus I’m guessing that opportunity is just more available to the rich & famous than us proles (if I wanted to cheat I’d have to be proactive about it, not wait for fans to jump into my lap).

Does being rich ‘n famous compel people to cheat?

Being famous definitely increases your opportunities to cheat, as there’s always *someone* willing to throw themselves at you by virtue of your celebrity.  Being rich just makes it easier to cheat, if you know how to cover your tracks.  A lot of men don’t cheat mainly because they can’t afford a mortgage *and* an apartment/hotel room.

Like bouj said: Tiger cheated because he could.

To paraphrase Chris Rock: A lot of men are only as faithful as their options.

I’m not sure why I’m supposed to care.  Sexual fidelity is hardly the end-all and be-all of a successful marriage.

We care because we care, Mr maximus. 

You could probably cheat and get away with it, I could probably cheat and no one would ever know, and even Mr Taylor could probably get away with it.  But when you’re as famous and as wealthy as Mr Woods, face facts, it ain’t gonna stay a secret!

I vote for an examination and dialouge of cheating by rich, image obsessed political demagogues.
But that wouldn’t exactly be an article or magazine length thing. Unless you were just touching on the most hypocritical examples. Even then - it would be a long one.

“More to the point, if Elin went after him with a golf club, I don’t see why she shouldn’t  be arrested, unless Tiger was hitting her as well.”

Should she be arrested if she assaulted her husband with a deadly weapon?  Sure.  I can see the authorities being less than interested in pursuing it unless they find video of the incident, though.  If the alleged victim is not only refusing to press charges but refusing to admit that he was attacked, and the alleged victim did not sustain any injuries that couldn’t be credibly accounted for by the crash, and the incident has no independent witnesses, and the alleged perpetrator has not made any incriminating statements, and the alleged incident is of a type which is a difficult sell to juries in the best of cases, and the alleged victim is a billionaire who would in all likelihood put that wealth to work in the alleged perpetrator’s defense should charges be pursued in spite of all the above, it promises to be a long, hard, and expensive slog in pursuit of an incredibly unlikely conviction.

Being famous definitely increases your opportunities to cheat, as there’s always *someone* willing to throw themselves at you by virtue of your celebrity.

I don’t think “opportunity” accurately explains why anyone cheats.  There may be a few cases where a “homewrecker” tempts a man into cheating on his wife when he would have otherwise been faithful, but in most cases, that’s the backwards way of looking at it.  Nearly every single person, famous or not, has plenty of opportunities to cheat.  A lot of people don’t.  It’s rarely about just facing more temptation.

I suppose I would actually need to follow golf or at least Tiget Woods™ to understand the connection.

This month’s issue of Golf Digest features a photo of Obama crouching down eyeing a green while holding a golf club with another picture of Tiger Woods standing behind him looking ahead.  The cover photoshopped to seperate images together, but the story was an innocuous piece called “Ten tips Tiger Woods has for President Obama’s golf game” or something like that.

Anyway, the cover was put together before any of the Tiger Woods drama began, but people are making hay about it because of Woods’ personal problems and Obama’s somewhat strained relationship with the Democratic base over his Afghan policy - neither one of them is having a great week, and it’s ironic that the cover would come out now, even though it’s sheer coincidence.

I hope for the president’s sake that there aren’t photos of him with Tiger Woods before this magazine came out.

Two things:

1. The magazine cover was photoshopped.  It uses two separate photographs of Obama and Woods, but it is fused together as if Woods is standing over Obama.

2.  There is a photograph of Tiger Woods standing side-by-side with President Obama in the Oval Office, when he visited the WH last spring.  <a href=‘http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/images/tigerwoods2_blog.jpg>’> so there’s no disputing it’s authenticity.  I don’t think it means much.  Woods is only one of more than a hundred famous celebrities that has visited Obama at the White House.  Brad Pitt and Reese Witherspoon have also been photographed in the Oval Office side by side with Obama, and I don’t think anyone really cares about those pictures, either.

I don’t think “opportunity” accurately explains why anyone cheats.  There may be a few cases where a “homewrecker” tempts a man into cheating on his wife when he would have otherwise been faithful, but in most cases, that’s the backwards way of looking at it.  Nearly every single person, famous or not, has plenty of opportunities to cheat.  A lot of people don’t.  It’s rarely about just facing more temptation.

I think every person is certainly capable of finding plenty of opportunities to cheat, but like I said it is always easier for people to justify it to themselves if they don’t have to be proactive about looking for a sideline partner. I think Dan Savage sort of lampooned that mentality a few times when receiving mail where ‘it just happened’ was the excuse for the cheating (“Oh oops, look at that, how did my cock fall in there?”), but certainly it’s a factor. If you have to go looking actively to cheat, for a lot of people that’s just too much effort to go through. It’s not that they wouldn’t be able to do it, just that it crosses a morality line for most people that just being ‘in the moment’ does not.

I can see the authorities being less than interested in pursuing it unless they find video of the incident, though.

Apparently Florida has a new-ish domestic violence law that takes into account that spouses don’t want to press charges in DV situations.  This is the purported reason why Tiger and Elin are not talking to the police.  There’s no blood in the car, and if Tiger’s injuries look like someone took a golf club to his head more than a car accident, apparently the cops are required to arrest Elin.  No bail either.

So then we’ve got mug shots and ugliness that the Woods would rather avoid, and they are rich enough to avoid it.

I’ve read a few articles whining that this incident just gives MRAs ammo for “women beat men, too”.  MRAs will whine that no matter what the reality is.  They then go on to argue that the new DV law is being ‘abused’ if a woman is arrested or that it’s simply not a good law.  I don’t think it’s a bad law.

As for what really happened, I actually don’t care much at all at this point.  I do get annoyed when people who make millions by being famous (and Tiger has made far more money from endorsements than from golf) whine that they want their privacy.

You can have it.  You just have to give up being famous and the money that goes with it.  But if you want the multimillions that go with worldwide fame, then you’ve already forfeited privacy for fame, so don’t whine.

catgirl, I certainly didn’t mean that opportunity alone explains it.  But the average dudebro-nobody sitting at the bar can *want* to cheat all he likes; it’s no guarantee he’ll be taking someone home with him.  Fame will up the odds considerably.

Nearly every single person, famous or not, has plenty of opportunities to cheat.

I’m sure that’s true in the Land of the Pretty People.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Woods, the reason this is a big deal (in the sports world, anyway) is that Woods has gone to incredible lengths to appear superhuman and calculated.  There were no outward signs of any emotions (aside from the on-course fist pump and occasional on-course expletive) or failings.  He was literally portrayed as this robotic perfect sporting machine whose sole goal was to trample anyone who got in his way on the golf course.  He and Nike went a long way to cultivate the image and protect his privacy in order to maintain the giant corporate monolith that would be worth a billion dollars.
Comment #5: bouj on 12/02 at 11:39 AM

Funny, because the impression I got of him from watching with my mother was that he wasn’t emotionless—just “emotionless” in that “masculine” sense of only showing no emotion or the emotion of happiness or anger.

And there’s always been talk about how he is up and down, sometimes he kills, sometimes he’s just not hitting right, rarely mediocre.

The golfing machine image thing comes from the way his father groomed him, but he is human and can’t be a machine.  Like that tennis player who recently revealed he hated tennis, the stage mother/father relentlessly pushing for perfection usually results in a cracked person.

And often contributes to having fake relationships because you don’t know what a real one is.  Not that this means his marriage is fake, or the other relationship is real, just that an unreal one is pretty unsatisfying and takes quite a bit of effort (“marriage is work!”) to keep intact.

I think Dan Savage sort of lampooned that mentality a few times when receiving mail where ‘it just happened’ was the excuse for the cheating (“Oh oops, look at that, how did my cock fall in there?”), but certainly it’s a factor. If you have to go looking actively to cheat, for a lot of people that’s just too much effort to go through. It’s not that they wouldn’t be able to do it, just that it crosses a morality line for most people that just being ‘in the moment’ does not.
Comment #17: BlackBloc on 12/02 at 02:34 PM

It’s like why we have locks on doors—to keep honest people honest.  If you’re determined to get through the door, no lock will stop you.  If you’re curious but not driven, you probably won’t go to the trouble of breaking through, but if it’s left open enough times, you may well go through it.

I do get annoyed when people who make millions by being famous (and Tiger has made far more money from endorsements than from golf) whine that they want their privacy.

You can have it.  You just have to give up being famous and the money that goes with it.  But if you want the multimillions that go with worldwide fame, then you’ve already forfeited privacy for fame, so don’t whine.

I don’t really understand this reasoning. Tiger Woods is famous for golf. How can one make the leap that he has therefore forfeited his privacy to everything else? When did general privacy rather than just specific privacy to a field of endeavor become the price for wealth and fame? It’d be different if he was famous because of his sexual exploits but he’s not. And it’d be great if the media took a similar attitude and leave this stuff to the gossip rags so they could cover actual news!

catgirl, I certainly didn’t mean that opportunity alone explains it.  But the average dudebro-nobody sitting at the bar can *want* to cheat all he likes; it’s no guarantee he’ll be taking someone home with him.  Fame will up the odds considerably.

  Nearly every single person, famous or not, has plenty of opportunities to cheat.

I’m sure that’s true in the Land of the Pretty People.
Comment #19: Sour Kraut on 12/02 at 03:52 PM

You’re left out if you’re fishing only in the pretty people pond.  If you consider having sex with people who aren’t “pretty,” you have a whole ocean.

Also, you can get a blow job for $5-$10 in a lot of places.  Even if a guy eats off the dollar menu, if he saves his lunch money for a week, he’s golden.  Unless you think prostitution isn’t cheating.

catgirl, I certainly didn’t mean that opportunity alone explains it.  But the average dudebro-nobody sitting at the bar can *want* to cheat all he likes; it’s no guarantee he’ll be taking someone home with him.  Fame will up the odds considerably.

Simple math.

There might be some women out there who’d be willing to have an affair with me, and there is no doubt at least one woman who could make me consider cheating on my wife if I ran into her and thought I could get away with it, but the odds of those two groups overlapping is pretty minimal, as they probably are for most people, men or women.

On the other hand if I’m rich, well-known, and travel a lot, the potential pool increases dramatically, if only in that the “women who’d be willing to have an affair with me” group would be at least a magnitude or two larger.

And it’d be great if the media took a similar attitude and leave this stuff to the gossip rags so they could cover actual news!

Agreed, but unfortunately no longer structurally possible.  All “media” is now primarily in the business of entertainment, and nothing entertains more than a juicy celebrity sex scandal.  While we would no doubt applaud the network which decided to take the high road and ignore this matter, the public would reward it by switching the channel en masse to a network doing gossip rag material.

The gossip rags nowadays at least tend to be honest about what they are and why they do it.

I don’t really understand this reasoning. Tiger Woods is famous for golf. How can one make the leap that he has therefore forfeited his privacy to everything else?

And an actor is only famous for their acting, a singer for their singing, and a politician for their politicking.  The same argument would apply to all of them, no?

Yes, he’s famous for golf.  “Golf” in this case being a shorthand description for “Athlete in a sport worth billions of dollars per year which has made him stinking rich, highly visible, and so easily recognized he makes even more money from having his face attached to a product that has nothing whatsoever to do with golf”.

As for what really happened, I actually don’t care much at all at this point.  I do get annoyed when people who make millions by being famous (and Tiger has made far more money from endorsements than from golf)

Tiger Woods has made $90 Million in tournemant winnings from playing golf.  He’s made around $900 Million in product endorsements (principally from Nike and Gatorade) and various business ventures.

That said, he’s not getting rich by simple virtue of “being famous for being famous”, like say, Paris Hilton.  If he couldn’t golf, he wouldn’t have gotten the $900 Million in product endorsements.  He’s so famous because: a) he broke the unofficial color barrier in one of the whitest sports ever invented; b) in the process of doing so, he’s also become arguably the greatest golfer in the history of the game.

What Jackie Robinson did was huge, and while he was an incredibly gifted and top-tier ballplayer, nobody ever considered him the greatest baseball player of all time.  Even if he were white, Tiger Woods still would still be pretty famous, because he would still be the greatest golfer of all time.

I think the amount of money many pro athletes and Hollywood celebrities make is pretty insane, but I don’t find it nearly as offensive as the money made by health insurance CEOs, for instance.  I don’t need to pay $200 to go watch an NFL game or a Rolling Stones concert to survive, but I do need access to decent healthcare options.  I just wish all of them had to pay a lot more in taxes, becaused they most definitely can afford it without sacrificing their luxurious lifestyles.  There’s very little difference in personal comforts one can afford if they have $100 Million versus having $500 Million.

Anyway, my favorite pro athlete is quite possibly going to become the highest paid baseball player of all time next year.  Hopefully, Albert Pujols remains a member of the St. Louis Cardinals once the contract negotiations start on the greatest baseball player of this generation.  I will be quite devastated if the fucking Steinbrenner family steals him from us.  I’ve still got my autographed photo of him and President Obama hugging on the field at the All-Star Game at Busch Stadium this summer.

And there’s always been talk about how he is up and down, sometimes he kills, sometimes he’s just not hitting right, rarely mediocre.

Most games have a tension between low risk/low reward strategies VS high risk/high reward (low risk/high reward strategies in games are always optimal and games who have them tend to be boring… high risk/low reward aren’t strategies, they’re called ‘misplays’ ).

Low risk/low reward will get you consistent high places, but in any game where there is a good number of great players your chances of finishing first will be roughly up to chance. You will always end up at high placements though.

High risk/high reward means you’ll win events more often, but when your risk doesn’t pan out you’ll go down in flames.

It’s just the nature of the beast. It depends on what you value. Some people aren’t willing to just be second place, it’s first or nothing. They’re willing to take big risks that will give them first place, but leave them crashing down if they don’t pan out. Some other people are content with getting a steady tournament income. There’s really no ‘right way’ of playing a game (golf in this instance), it depends on what results you want to achieve.

And an actor is only famous for their acting, a singer for their singing, and a politician for their politicking.  The same argument would apply to all of them, no?

Exactly, except for the politicians.  Politicians typically are trying to sell themselves as being model and ‘authentic’ human beings, and further undertake to act in accord with said character traits on behalf of and in trust to the common benefit.  They are not supposed to be rewarded for their ability to act, though of course they typically are.  They are not supposed to be there because of some notable yet wholly extraneous athletic or physical talent, though again, there are pointed exceptions.  Point being: actors, athletes, and non-politician celebrities have very colorable claim to a right to privacy…particularly where they go to lengths to maintain that privacy, and are not of the ‘famous for being famous’ species of celebrity that really and truly exists for the sake of receiving public attention.

Jake Tosser and his intern are already all over this story:

Golf Digest Asks - What Can President Obama Learn From Tiger Woods?

As Bob Somerby might say, “let the rubbin’ begin!”

Well, I find it a rather amusing bit of salacious gossip, that’s all.  True or not- I kind of like the image of a golf champion being chased by his wife swing a golf club.  I don’t go out of my way to find out more.  The first story is quite satisfying. Maybe it’ll make a TV movie or something. A good commercial, for sure!

Lots of beer is consumed at golf courses.

Although, at pro events, most of it is at the club house.

Out here in the west, golf is a pretty common sport.  Until the suburban areas built up, there were golf courses in every neighborhood, golf shops are found in strip malls where you can hit the ball a few times, buy new gear.  My high school was exceptionally poor, but we had a golf team!

Golf courses provide green barriers, storm water absorption, fresh water storage and can be used as part of the water cleaning system.  On the bad side, many use too much water for the area, push out wildlife, and use too much artificial fertilizer.

Of course, where I’m from, Obama won the white-male vote, too.  So… Hardly representational of the eastern elite.

You’re left out if you’re fishing only in the pretty people pond.  If you consider having sex with people who aren’t “pretty,” you have a whole ocean.

Patronizing nonsense.  But let’s not derail the thread.

Unless you think prostitution isn’t cheating.

Of course it is, no matter what Hugh Grant thinks.  And there’s another poster boy for this phenomenon.

KeithM nailed what I’m getting at with his Simple Math post.

I’ve only admired his golf playing ability and his level-headedness when responding to crazy crap around him.  He didn’t lose his head over the Fuzzy Zoller business and accepted the apology with grace.
That he had sex outside his marriage doesn’t affect my view of him because I never expected him to be a moral paragon.  Too bad for Elin, him and their kid.  I only hope he can regain his extraordinary power of concentration on the course next spring. 

I do scratch my head about Tiger and Hugh Grant.  Somehow, despite all the evidence that is happens often, I am amazed when men cheat on such beautiful women.  I must put too much value on physical beauty I guess.

KeithM wrote:

On the other hand if I’m rich, well-known, and travel a lot, the potential pool increases dramatically, if only in that the “women who’d be willing to have an affair with me” group would be at least a magnitude or two larger.

The problem is that the pool of people who would be willing to check up on you, to see if there’s anything like that they could find, also increases exponentially.  The John Edwards case is the most illustrative: the Enquirer had a lead, and put a lot of time and effort into getting the goods—complete with photographs.  There was money to be made!

The problem is that the pool of people who would be willing to check up on you, to see if there’s anything like that they could find, also increases exponentially.  The John Edwards case is the most illustrative: the Enquirer had a lead, and put a lot of time and effort into getting the goods—complete with photographs.  There was money to be made!

And ironically, this is about the only situation where any serious investigative journalism actually occurs anymore…the major networks’ job as far as gathering actual “hard” news now is to report from press conferences or else uncritically pass along press releases.

I do scratch my head about Tiger and Hugh Grant.  Somehow, despite all the evidence that is happens often, I am amazed when men cheat on such beautiful women.  I must put too much value on physical beauty I guess.

Putting too much value on physical beauty ain’t your only issue if you really think that the only reason someone would cheat is because they saw someone with better tits or something.

And on the flip side, do you then think it’s totally understandable when men cheat on average-looking women? Because men could only possibly really want to be with supermodels?

Patronizing nonsense.

But true. Hell, some of us who aren’t pretty get laid once in a while, too.

Two easy ways not to cheat:

(1) Don’t enter a monogamous relationship with someone.  This makes cheating impossible.
(2) If you do agree to a monogamous relationship, don’t fuck other people while in that relationship.

I do scratch my head about Tiger and Hugh Grant.  Somehow, despite all the evidence that is happens often, I am amazed when men cheat on such beautiful women.  I must put too much value on physical beauty I guess.

I guess that’s similar to the idea that only “pretty” women get raped—it seems like the “sex” in either situation isn’t about the woman’s looks so much as the power/emotional impact/control/secrecy/etc. If men cheated *only* because they wanted to sleep with a somewhat prettier woman then they could buy their current significant other a spa day or new lipstick, or keep the lights out and think of Angelina Jolie, or just dump the poor lady and date prettier people. Cheating must add some kind of value beyond just sleeping with a hotter woman (just like rape isn’t about the sex at all—there are easier ways to get sex—it’s about a whole other set of desires independent of attraction and affection.)

Back on topic: I have no idea if Tiger Woods cheated, or if his wife chased him with golf clubs. Both are immoral and the last is illegal, so a major “tsk tsk” at whoever did what. :p

Patronizing nonsense.

But true. Hell, some of us who aren’t pretty get laid once in a while, too.

And some of us pretty people don’t get laid! (I kid, I kid ... about that first part. :p)

And some of us pretty people don’t get laid! (I kid, I kid ... about that first part.

Well, that’s true, too. I’ve got a couple of friends, male and female, who are very attractive yet cannot get laid to save their respective lives. The reasons are different and varied but a lot of it does boil to confidence and just basic being comfortable in your own skin. You walk through this world with confidence and swagger, you’ll get more tail than a bob-wire fence.

(1) Don’t enter a monogamous relationship with someone.  This makes cheating impossible.

Not actually true. Many (I would say most) non-monogamous relationships still have boundaries and rules that can be crossed and would be considered cheating.  It happens all the time.

I do scratch my head about Tiger and Hugh Grant.  Somehow, despite all the evidence that is happens often, I am amazed when men cheat on such beautiful women.  I must put too much value on physical beauty I guess.

When President Clinton’s book My Life was published, a bunch of reviewers immediately went for the section where he explained his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.  His explaination: “Because I could.”

I suspect that that motive is behind most cheating.

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“Apparently Florida has a new-ish domestic violence law that takes into account that spouses don’t want to press charges in DV situations.  This is the purported reason why Tiger and Elin are not talking to the police.  There’s no blood in the car, and if Tiger’s injuries look like someone took a golf club to his head more than a car accident, apparently the cops are required to arrest Elin.  No bail either.”

The auto-charge statute is at least a decade old.  It was initially instituted to recognize that DV victims are particularly susceptible to pressure to drop charges against their assailants, who are particularly prone to re-offending, and that the state has a greater duty to pursue charges once filed without the complaining witness’s cooperation.  Later expansion was meant to cover situations where there’s something to go on initially but the victim doesn’t want to press charges at all.  The typical situation is one where the cops show up, the victim confirms that s/he’s been assaulted, and then recants or refuses to cooperate once the batterer is being arrested.  It doesn’t extend to coply suspicion being enough to seize Tiger Woods’ person and clubs and going all CSI in an attempt to prove that he was injured with a 4-iron by his wife.  Without something (surveillance footage apparently now a likely target), there doesn’t seem to be a way to get from Point A to enough evidence to stand up against a wrongful arrest suit.

And today’s joke is that Mr Woods has changed his nickname from Tiger to Cheetah. 

I give Tiger some credit for trying to keep his wife out of jail and out of the system.  Some overzealous prosecuter in Florida would probably try to convict her of attempted murder.

Hopefully Tiger’s security people have already “reused” the tape.

“Some overzealous prosecuter in Florida would probably try to convict her of attempted murder.”

Assuming Mrs. Woods did in fact assault her husband with a golf club, I doubt she intended to kill him but Jesus Christ that’s not exactly a small potatoes attack.  The state does have an interest in intervening when individual citizens try to send each other to the trauma ward.

After I wrote that I also realized that I was probably blaming the victim and applauding the victim who later enables their attacker to get away with it.  It is interesting even someone as rich and powerful as Tiger Woods can fall into to the trap of not prosecuting his attacker.

Mr Rove wrote:

After I wrote that I also realized that I was probably blaming the victim and applauding the victim who later enables their attacker to get away with it.  It is interesting even someone as rich and powerful as Tiger Woods can fall into to the trap of not prosecuting his attacker.

What, you think that a man not wanting to see his wife convicted of a crime and possibly going to jail is somehow a trap or wrong, even if she did club him—so to speak?

“What, you think that a man not wanting to see his wife convicted of a crime and possibly going to jail is somehow a trap or wrong, even if she did club him—so to speak?”

You realize that getting attacked with a golf club isn’t cute, cuddly, affectionate, or non-injurious just because the person swinging it is a cute white blonde lady, right?

I can understand why he wouldn’t want her to go to jail, but at the same time she seems somewhat dangerous. 
I think the whole incident shows the conundrum for people involved in domestic violence, I don’t know what I would do if I was Tiger Woods.

It’s just the nature of the beast. It depends on what you value. Some people aren’t willing to just be second place, it’s first or nothing. They’re willing to take big risks that will give them first place, but leave them crashing down if they don’t pan out. Some other people are content with getting a steady tournament income. There’s really no ‘right way’ of playing a game (golf in this instance), it depends on what results you want to achieve.
Comment #27: BlackBloc on 12/02 at 04:39 PM

Right.  I wasn’t saying his approach to the game was wrong.  Just that he’s not a “robotic perfect sporting machine” (bouj’s description) who never fails. 

I can understand why he wouldn’t want her to go to jail, but at the same time she seems somewhat dangerous.
I think the whole incident shows the conundrum for people involved in domestic violence, I don’t know what I would do if I was Tiger Woods.
Comment #52: John Rove on 12/03 at 09:36 PM

You’re assuming that what you’ve heard is true, that he really was physically attacked by her.

Maybe he tried to hit the tree to hurt himself.  He could be suicidal. 

And some abusers hurt themselves as a way to scare others.  I know it sounds crazy but you might be surprised how often this happens.

Or maybe there’s another person involved that we don’t know about, a friend or relative of hers who attacked him.

The point is we don’t know, and suppositions really don’t help the situation if they’re wrong.  Would it be good if someone could get him away from the situation and talk with him about what happened?  Yes.  For all we know, that could have happened. 

I really do hope that, whatever’s wrong, everyone’s getting the help they need.