David Irvine

Well, here is my perspective on the Tiger Woods situation…

Great Golfer to Great Person?

“I make it very, very clear that my purpose in raising Tiger was not to raise a golfer. What I always wanted was to raise a good person.”

Earl Woods, Tiger’s father

Already the greatest golfer of all time, and with the world looking upon him, Tiger has an opportunity to take up the second, more important challenge, of his father. Tiger can see his current fiasco in his front yard as the media’s degradation of his private life — the worst of times — or he can come to understand the importance of his role in the world right now as a teacher, a leader, an influencer of others, especially youth — the best of times.

In a society obsessed with image, external trappings, and the “gotcha journalism” (it is disgusting that the night after the US President committed 30,000 young people to go to war, all the media was focused on Tiger), there is an immense opportunity – perhaps a responsibility – that comes with Tiger’s position to go beyond his success as a golfer or his mistakes as a husband. With the eyes of the world upon him he could teach us all that life is more than external success; it’s also about facing the darker sides of our nature, and that the ultimate fulfillment of life is not on the golf course or the boardroom or in material possessions.

It lies at the heart of his and our souls, in his and our character, in his and our courage to meet the demands of reality. Based on the rebound from his recent knee surgery, there is no doubt Tiger is resilient and will come back as a world leader on the golf course. What I hope is that he won’t miss the opportunity to turn his debacle into a positive rather than a negative outcome, based on the choices he makes — and become the world leader and a good person just as his dad wanted. There is, undoubtedly, a lesson here for all of us.

What is the lesson for you in all this? I’d love to hear from you.