Saturday, April 17, 2010

FORE!

The contrast could not have been starker.

With tears tracking down his cheeks, golfer Phil Mickelson kissed his wife Amy after winning his third Masters Tournament, in what was the most heartwarming embrace between a public figure and his wife in recent memory. It turns out the emotion was due to far more than Mickelson's amazing golfing feat as it was to his leave from last year's tour to attend to Amy's battle with breast cancer.

Tiger Woods also took time off recently to enter advertizing brand rehab in hopes of salvaging his billion dollar promotional enterprises. While Mickelson was taking care of family priorities, Woods was focused for the last five years since his marriage looking for love in all the wrong places.

The five stroke gap between their scores belies the fact that Woods is still a better golfer and arguably the best ever. The gap between their characters however, is a chasm that rivals the Grand Canyon. The intimate embrace of Phil and Amy contrasts with the real ocean that separates Tiger and Elin due to the ocean of humiliation and pain he inflicted upon her.

Maybe it was for the best Tiger didn't win in his inaugural rehabilitation tournament. There would certainly have been no tears shed from Tiger, or from golfdom having to watch him with just his caddy to kiss, or worse, the famous Green Jacket .

Originally published at ChicagoTribune.com, April 13, 2010, and USA Today, April 15, 2010.