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The Automaton, a simulacron of a great golfer

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I have changed my mind about Tiger because I thought the man and the player (of golf) could be separated. I have decided that Tiger is no longer the greatest to have played the game. Through his actions, he has shown himself unworthy of the game which values moral and ethical behavior. The Rules of Golf are not just a list of crimes and punishment, but assume an internal moral compass that guides player. Players who abide by these Rules elevate themselves in the process. This includes players who call penalties on themselves on trangressions witnessed only by them. This valuing of honesty and ethical behavior is unique to golf where players have famously penalized themselves out of championships or, tragically, tour cards.

If Tiger behaved this way off the course, who knows what guided his behavior on the course in relation to golf. You can obey the law out of fear of punishment or out of internal ethics and morality. Tiger is no golfist, but revealed to be the golfing equivalent of Deep Blue, the chess playing supercomputer, a soul-less automaton. The events of the past several weeks shows that Tiger has no moral compass, and excels at this great game for entirely banal reasons of conditioning and training from childhood. By this measure, the average golfer who takes stroke and distance for going out of bounds even when playing by himself is a greater custodion of the sport than Tiger.

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The Lover

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The Lover

Stress tests are used to determine the quality of things. In medicine, we have a stress test that gives us an idea how strong a heart is. In auto manufacturing, there is the crash test. In professional golf, we now have the sex scandal.

The sex scandal is a stress test most often seen in the realm of politics. But the peccadilloes of a politician became passe after ten solid years going with the tapping of shoes in airport bathrooms sandwiched between Clinton and Berlusconi. This is a stress test that reveals dimensions to Tiger that we’ve never seen before.

Tiger married Elin, a beautiful woman, but his aloofness and occasional public displays -hugging wife/children after win, revealed little. The more cynical among us could only wonder -was this all scripted? There are plenty of wealthy men with exquisite trophy wives who are revealed to have predilections across the sexual spectrum -at least in movies and novels.

So what did the past week reveal. If we are to believe the rumors, Tiger likes women with a certain body type -athletic, muscular legs, size B cups, and serious lips. We also find that Tiger has a misunderstanding about the call history function and contacts program on his cell phone. The US Magazine’s voice mail audio reveals that the purported Tiger is worried that his wife is checking his phone call history and requests the woman that he is calling remove her name from her phone number. The problem is that names are not tagged with phone numbers, but do show up in call histories with names when said names are in the contacts directory. Meaning Tiger kept only one cell phone.

What does this reveal? It confirms Tiger’s legendary miserliness or naivete. Billionaires with mistresses usually keep separate cell phones for booty calls and keep it in the golf bag or with a trusted assistant like Stevie. They keep contacts for Ginger, Misty, and Nicki, under Frank, Otto, and Rocco.

If the rumors that he was assaulted with a golf club are true, that means that he took his punishment like a golfer who hits the ball out of bounds. I frankly think he was running for his life after being hit on the head with Elin slamming the club into the back window as he drove out of the garage. Passing out, he hits tree and hydrant.

But what does all of this say about us? Why all the schadenfreude? Why all the venom? First, there is the issue that if there was an assault, there was a felony, and to hide behind gates and walls of privilege stinks to a public that is economically stressed. Refusing the request of the FHP for an interview and all the second hand communication through blogs and lawyers is a poor substitute for a visit to our society’s confessor, Larry King. The second is our need to destroy heroes, crucify them, worship them when they’re dead but kick them when alive. And finally, the third is the need for men to vocally disown this and for women to narrow their eyes and purse their lips. I for one completely do not condone any of this. The cell phone stuff was given for informational purposes only.

As I have written previously on this blog, the half life of human desire is about 6 months. That romantic love, that dopamine rush of courtship which is pretty much the same reaction people get on crack, dissipates and we bond, replacing dopamine with oxytocin. Children help this bond. Ultimately, the strength of the bond is related to the strength of character of the parties involved. We should not be rubbernecking this terrible crash site, but rather focus on our own game. Keep your head still and your feet on the ground.

It goes without saying, I love my wife very, very much. Bad Tiger, Baaaad Tiger.

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The Husband Keeper

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Login and face the music like a man

Login and face the music like a man...husband-man

One Monday on Facebook,

Me, status update: Working for a living.

My Sister-in-Law, comment: yes but at least you get paid for it.

My Sister-in-Law is an out of work Yale MBA currently staying at home with two small children. They live on the west coast with its inherent expenses.

Me, comment: I’d rather get paid for my thoughts on golf, technology, and the future. Or for thoughtful, heroic roles in important epic feature films. Or for inventing something on the scale of post-it notes. By the way, your work is not gratis.

  • Cook- 2000/mo
  • Chauffeur -2000/mo
  • Nannyx2 2000/mo
  • Sugar baby 1500/mo
  • Consultant -1000/mo
  • Cleaner -1000/mo
  • Gardener -1000/mo
  • Tutors 2500/mo
  • Room/board for all these people 3500/mo

I can go on. This is with no benefits -health or retirement.

My Lovely Wife, J, comment: Do you want a bill?

Me, comment: Yikes!

Sister in Law, comment: kee kee…

Guess now that you’ve convinced me I’ve earned it, I can afford to redecorate, treat myself to those spa treatments, and toss in that Marc Jacobs handbag I’ve been eyeing. I think we may also need to add Psychologist, Nutritionist, Hair Stylist and Health Care Professional to the list…

Me, comment, exeunt: You go girl. It doesn’t apply to J because she employs me.

This exchange made me think, which is the first step into getting into big trouble. Why do do women want to get married and stay married? If you look at the job description, the housewife takes on at least 5 or 6 essential jobs, goes through great deal of risk to have children, and starts having incredible headaches after about five years of marriage.

If the husband was the first domesticated animal (link), the husband-keeper was the first pet owner. Some husbands are useful and clever like the sheep dogs in that Samsung commercial (link). Others are more like those giant dogs people get when they’re small and cute, but are horrified soon to find that the dog eats food bought in fifty pound sacks and lays turds bigger than theirs. They’re messy, they’re high maintenance, and they’re horny.

So what do you do about a problem dog? You “fix it.” And that is what the husband keeper does to the problem husband. The fix involves:

  1. limiting access to non-family activities with the guys (hunting, fishing, golfing!) that increases testosterone driven pack behavior
  2. letting them overeat (to make them less appealing to other women and by increasing body fat, increase relative estrogens and brooding behaviors while tamping down on demon testosterone)
  3. making them drive ungainly automobiles that have the profile of pregnant women (minivans, Priuses, Lexus anything). Through  about a million years of monogamy, the original savage brute is transformed into the domesticated house-husband.

Being married, I clearly benefit by not having to employ an army of assistants while getting a leg up on unmarried people with the help of my wife. I am presentable because of my wife. The unattached, middle-aged man has the shelf life of a can of anchovies -more than a few years, but not more than about five to twenty. Being unmarried, unattached, or sadly widowed in your sixties or later is a formula for showing up sallow, unshavened, unpressed, and unwashed -a homeless man. There is good data to show that longevity is associated with marriage. Most guys who run off on their wives and families immediately turn around and get married and start another family -what were they running from?

What benefit does a woman get? Pride in ownership? Someone to kill varmints? I have very little insight into this question. I did kill a mouse in my NY apartment in 2003 -last time I did something tangibly useful for my wife. It is shocking to me that we are nearing our 15th anniversary and I look at my wife and nothing has changed about her and us. And maybe this two-happy-bugs-preserved-in-amber-for-a-billions-years thing is it: it is not one person’s benefit or the other’s, but the sum of the whole. By getting married, we enter a time compression bubble where one year can feel like seven but fifteen can feel like one. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, I am hers and she is mine.

Now about that Porsche.