TV VIEW:"AN EXTRAORDINARY 36 minutes with Tiger Woods," said Fox News' Megyn Kelly after the press conference in Augusta, her colleagues Brian Kilmeade and Trace Gallagher nodding wholeheartedly. It soon became apparent, however, Megyn and the lads thought it was extraordinary for entirely different reasons.
“Very humble, very modest,” said a clearly moved Brian, half intimating that Tiger was nearly well and truly back, all was almost forgiven, an icon once again.
Megyn’s nostrils flared, leaving Trace looking more than a little frightened.
It’s not uncommon for Megyn to blow a gasket, although in fairness it’s quite possibly part of the job description for Fox anchors. It’s rare, though, that she gets angry with her stable-mates, largely because they’re rarely brave enough to disagree.
“He talks like he is a changed man . . . but this only happened FOUR MONTHS ago,” she said, with considerable feeling. “FOUR MONTHS AGO! He was having affairs with . . .”
“Several women,” Trace interjected.
“DOZENS of women,” Megyn corrected him. “DOZENS!”
Trace nodded, in a “whatever- you-say-Megyn” kind of way.
Trace, bless him, tried hard to switch the subject to Dr Galea and spinning blood, a topic with which he was more comfortable than, say, a ménage à trios between a golfing legend, a cocktail waitress and a bottle of maple syrup.
Megyn was having none of it. After reading extracts from Tiger’s text messages, extracts that left Trace finding an itchy spot on his ankle, she insisted she wasn’t seeking to be “salacious”, but she felt we needed to know what we were dealing with here.
“This was all happening a few months ago when we were having our Thanksgiving dinner – is that forgotten? Is he a role model now again?”
“Well,” said Trace. He left it there.
Brian, though, had lots to say. He told us the only comparable case he could think of was that of basketball megasuperstar Kobe Bryant. A few years back there was a rape allegation against Bryant, Brian reminded us. “No one wanted to wear Kobe jerseys – but now his is one of the hottest selling jerseys – is rape worse than cheating on your wife multiple times?”
(Bryant, incidentally, was never convicted of anything, but Fox folk tend to view that “innocent til proven guilty” thing as something from the Communist Manifesto).
Trace carried on scratching his ankle, wishing he’d taken Easter Monday off for a trip to, say, Tallahassee, but the prospects of Brand Tiger becoming a big seller again was enough to make Megyn want to scratch her own eyes out.
“You guys are both fathers, right? Are you comfortable with him being a role model to your children now? Are you? Is that where we are? Has he elevated himself back to role model status?”
“Well,” said Trace, “no, that’s not where you point your kids at.” He left it there. Jeez, that blasted ankle.
Brian?
(By the way, he’s the fella who, somewhat famously, responded on Fox to research that claimed that couples who have long marriages are less inclined to develop Alzheimer’s disease, by declaring: “We keep marrying other species and other ethnics. The problem is the Swedes have pure genes. They marry other Swedes, that’s the rule. Finns marry other Finns; they have a pure society. In America we marry everybody. We will marry Italians and Irish.”
(Considering Tiger’s Da had African American, Chinese and Native American ancestry and his mother has Thai, Chinese and Dutch roots, you’d have to assume that Brian reckons Tiger is a species from an extrasolar planet.)
“If he has a big weekend at the Masters this is going to be the biggest story you could possibly imagine,” he told Megyn (Trace was no longer listening, the itch now searing). “As big as the World Cup, as big as the Olympics. On Saturday, if this guy’s still in contention he’ll be bigger than life – again.”
Bigger than life? Megyn sighed. It measured 8.6 on the Richter scale. She thanked Brian for his contribution, through gritted teeth, and offered to remove any trace of Trace’s ankle.
Meanwhile. “Is anyone else bored by this,” asked a man on the Guardian website after the press conference. “He’s even made adultery boring.”
He had a point. Although, if he and Trace had paid attention they would have noted that this was a teency bit different. Tiger, for once, was not entirely in control, and there were times when you half-thought to yourself: crikey, this fella borders on the human. (Don’t tell Megyn, mind, we’re not that brave.)
Of course the golfy journalists had to spoil the fun by asking questions about putting and the like, rather than focusing on the text messages, leaving Tiger in a way-too-comfortable comfort-zone.
And those queries about performance enhancing drugs only led to denials that he ever used HGH and admissions that he’d received PRP treatment after he blew out his ACL and was having his LCL reconstructed. We were, to be honest, initialised out of it.
But, he’s back. And – again, don’t tell Megyn – we almost liked the fella yesterday, there were times when he even bordered on being a man and not a product.
We’d beg to differ with Brian, though, we remain unconvinced that he’ll be bigger than life any day soon. After all, even in his untarnished heyday he was only ever a man. Ain’t that enough, warts and all?
