Friday column: Tiger, Tiger, not burning so bright

Do you know how I know Tiger Woods — the No. 1 athletic icon on the planet — has really messed up?

It’s not that the National Enquirer claims Woods had an affair with a New York “VIP host.”

It’s not that US Weekly alleges he had a two-year affair with a cocktail waitress.

It’s not that the New York Daily News says he had a fling with a Las Vegas nightclub promoter.

It’s not that he crashed his car into a fire hydrant and a tree at 2:25 in the morning and that his wife was wielding a 3-iron.

It’s not that Woods is vaguely apologizing for letting his family down and is begging for privacy.

OK, yes — it is all those things. But it’s also this: the caliber of people rushing to his defense.

“I don’t really care what happened between Tiger and … whatever happened. I’m just glad he’s OK,” said John Daly, whose personal life is a cross between a country-western song and a train wreck.

“Everybody made a big deal out of it, but it’s not a big deal because the only one perfect is God,” said Ron Artest, best known for a brawl he started in the stands in Detroit and a man who recently appeared on national TV in his boxer shorts.

Well, Ron, I know you’re so rarely wrong, but it is a big deal, and very surprising. Not surprising as in Wow, Woods is not the perfect person his carefully crafted image would suggest, but surprising as in Wow, he apparently thought he could keep the image while behaving like Bill Clinton on a Viagra drip.

I mean, did he really think he could cavort with a bimbo or three and not have word get out — from the bimbos at the very least? According to US Weekly, Woods left 300 text messages on the phone of the L.A. cocktail waitress — 300!

Though, really, one would have been too many — especially one like the voice mail he allegedly left last week asking the waitress to change the ID on her phone so that his wife wouldn’t recognize it.

Instead, the waitress reportedly sold the sound bite and her story for a hundred large, evidentally surprising Woods, who perhaps had convinced himself he was dating her for her character.

A hundred large, of course, is piffle. Reports are that Woods already has transferred $5 million into his wife’s account and, when not engaged in daily marriage counseling sessions — those must be fun — is rewriting the couple’s prenuptial agreement in a way that could cost him $55 million.

So it’s good news that Nike, Gatorade and other companies Woods makes money for are standing by their dollar — I mean, by their man — for now, anyway. Still, endorsement psychology is based on the idea that the consumer in some sense wants to be the endorser — and I don’t think anyone wants to be Tiger Woods right now.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Friday column: Two little words, one fervent plea

It’s been a rough year.

Wall-to-wall presidential politics. Economic collapse. Madonna breaking up with Guy Ritchie.

Before we attempt to move on and heal from the deep psychic wounds left by 2008, it’s best to try and shed some of the year’s more annoying baggage. As the campaigning has stopped (briefly), the economy is beyond my ken (totally), and the Madge will not listen to a word I say, I’d better stick to sports.

So, to certain figures who — unfortunately — populate the Toy Department of Life, herewith my New Year’s greeting, advice and plea all rolled together:

Terrell Owens: Many of you are familiar with Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase “the banality of evil.” In Owens’ case, it’s the banality of ego. And it’s worn … so … thin. Go away.

Manny Ramirez: Probably heeding the advice of your scaly agent, you flat-out quit on your teammates in Boston — even knocked down the team’s 64-year-old traveling secretary — all so you could get out of your $20 million-a-year contract, which obviously wasn’t enough for a talent and personality as special as yours. Go away — and take Scott Boras with you.

Roger Clemens: Your attempted bullying of Brian McNamee and resultant appearance before Congress gave us an up-close-and-personal look at who you really are — a lot closer and more personal than we really wanted to see. Go away.

Pacman Jones: Back to the banality of ego, with some actual evil thrown in. Your continued thuggery followed by promises to reform followed by further thuggery … well, to use one word: BORING. Go away.

Plaxico Burress: Your wide-receiver-diva act isn’t even original; Terrell Owens plowed that field long ago. Adding criminality might have been interesting — but it was such stupid criminality. Go away.

Michael Vick: Gosh, Mike, it turns out you weren’t needed in Atlanta. Even your more rabid supporters — you know, the ones who didn’t care that you tortured and killed dogs as long as you scored touchdowns — even they don’t miss you because of the arrival of rookie quarterback Matt Ryan. So go away. Wait — that’s right, you’ve already gone away. So stay away.

John Daly (sigh): You keep coming up with new ways to embarrass yourself, but each time you insist your problem is simply one of perception. Yes, you do see that you’re viewed as a sloppy boozer on a Twinkie binge who’s pissing on the prodigious talent God gave you — but you’re absolutely astounded as to what’s fueling that idea. It’s always the press or someone else who’s out to get you. Guess what, John? You’re out to get you, and you’re succeeding. Now go away.

There — I don’t know about you, but I feel lighter already. Happy New Year.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Who ya gonna believe? Me or you lyin' eyes?

Remember a while back when swing coach Butch Harmon threw up his hands about coaching John Daly?

Harmon publicly dropped Daly as a client, saying the “most important thing in his life is getting drunk." The final straw apparently was Daly spending a tournament weather delay in a Hooters corporate tent.

Whereupon Daly blistered Harmon, saying, “His lies kind of destroyed my life for a little bit. The lies he said about being at the Hooters tent and all this stuff,” Daly said.

“I think he should become a man and talk about some of the stuff he lied about. I just wish he wouldn’t have said the things he did that made you guys (the press) write some pretty bad things about me when nobody really had the facts.”

Here’s some facts for you, John:

Sunday, you were held overnight in a North Carolina jail after passing out at a Hooters restaurant. Police said you "appeared extremely intoxicated and uncooperative," and refused to go to a hospital to be checked out, as police requested.

So police took you to jail until you sobered up.

It’s a different sport and all that, but as it seems apt, in the matter of your word vs. Harmon’s, we call it for Harmon — game, set and match.