Good afternoon, members of the Press, Friends, Family, President of the Nike Corporation, CEO of Buick, Mom and fans across the world. I come before you today to answer for my actions, and I plan on doing that. I want to first thank you all for coming and supporting me during this, for the sake of argument, "difficult" time. All of your letters of encouragement have been very comforting, I guess.
I know all the parts that we're supposed to play. You're all doing an excellent job of being absolutely mortified that I'm human, and I'm supposed to come out and talk about how confused and profoundly damaged I must be. But instead of all that, I'd like to, for once, talk about an adult situation like an adult to a bunch of other adults. Hopefully, by the end of my speech, you'll understand why I did what I did, and we'll all be able to move passed this. I'm Tiger Woods
Think about that. Really let it sink in. You know who I am even if you probably can't name a single other golfer (athletes/actors-turned golfers and Greg Norman don't count). I am Tiger Woods. It takes giant balls to say to your friends one day, "Hey, from now on my name is 'Tiger'" and actually pull it off. And I did, because I have 'em. There are people out there, men, who say they would never do what I did. I appreciate your display of what you think is honor and integrity, but I'm going to be straight with you: You cannot make that claim until you've lived like Tiger Woods for a few months. And, brother, you have not. I am the only person on this planet who knows what it's like to be Tiger Woods. It is a hard, lonely and, yes, ass-filled world. You might think you see temptation from coworkers, or friends or ex-girlfriends, and you may have resisted them all. But being Tiger Woods enters you into a brand new world of temptation, things you couldn't even imagine.
I'm the captain of the football team of the universe.
I can't stress how easy these women make incognito fucking. I'll find them waiting in my hotel room, already in my bed and swearing they'll never tell anyone about this and they'll be gone in the morning. A naked chick, in my bed, saying, "No one will find out, I just want to have sex with you one time and then I'll be on my way." You can't even imagine a scenario where that happens for you, and it happens to me multiple times a day. Women break into my limo while it's moving and try to have sex with me. Have you ever tried to push a half-naked 19-year-old out of the sun roof of a moving limousine? Of course you haven't. One time on the course I reached into the hole to retrieve my ball and there was a titty in there. I still don't know how she got in there, she must've been waiting underground for days. I mean, how did she even breathe?
But I'm straying. My point is, I'm in a culture that screams my name and elevates me to God-like status because I'm dynamite at golfing, and I'm surrounded by gorgeous women who make it so easy to have sex with them I'd be stupid not to. It's easy for you to turn down hypothetical sex with a cute woman you see on the subway who might be flirting with you. Sometimes I wake up and women are already fucking me somehow. 10,000 miles from home, could you turn that down? You don't know how to answer because it isn't part of your reality. Of course you wouldn't have made the same moves I made: We're playing two different games. I've Earned This For two reasons. To begin with, you made me this way, America. You wanted a superstar, somebody to put on a pedestal. You don't even want a really good golfer, you want an inhumanly good golfer, the best in history. I wanted to make a living doing something I liked, but you wanted me to be the greatest. So fine, I'll do that. I've broken every golf record, I'm athlete of the year, athlete of the decade
, hell, I got a hole-in-one in real golf. This stuff is certainly difficult but I do it. And I put up with how badly society wants me to be the Golf God, but there's got to be a give and take, right? You want a superhero, so I'll be one, fine. Just so long as I can get some fucking done on the side. I don't think I'm being unreasonable. The media follows me every day to see what I'm doing. People come up to me on the street and tell me I'm the greatest. If I'm so great, shouldn't I be fucking something? I think you see my point. Additionally, you may not know this, but my real name is Eldrick Tont Woods. Say it out loud. Look in the mirror and introduce yourself as Eldrick Tont, and see if you don't want to beat you up. Do you think I scored a lot of ass in high school being a golf-loving, black/Asian/Indian kid named Eldrick?
That's not a boy's name, I sound like some kind of goddamned forest mage.
Do you know how many sorority sisters were chasing after dudes who read Golf Digest and idolized Jack Nicklaus? Fucking zero. "Oooh, Eldrick, your putting makes me so hot. Can you show me your Junior World Golf Championship medals again?" Bullshit. A mixed race, giant-toothed kid in Orange County, the whitest place on the planet, who had weird hobbies? Don't tell me I didn't earn as much porking as I can get my hands on. My Marriage Look, I'll be straight with you. My marriage is fine, sure. I don't want to talk a lot of shit on my marriage, but at the end of the day, she's a Swedish model who married a professional athlete worth over a hundred million dollars. Terrific girl. Would we have met and married if I wasn't Tiger Woods? Or if she wasn't a Swedish model? I don't know, but probably not. Do you know why she came to America? On the advice of another Swedish model who was married to a golfer.
It's just sort of how things go. And to begin with, when your marriage lives and dies in the media, the sanctity of that marriage is ultimately, at best, shaky. There will always be doubt on both sides, because the circumstances by which we came together are so suspect. "He only likes me because I'm a model," "She only likes me because I'm Tiger Woods." And stop feeling sorry for her. She's fucking Tiger Woods in one of her many luxurious mansions. She's doing fine. And, at any rate, what does it matter? As far as your golf-watching experience goes, what does it even matter? Did you watch me, buy my games and enjoy my commercials because I ruled ass at golf, or because you thought I was faithfully sticking it only to my wife?
Sex is Awesome and I'm Great At It Look, we're all adults here. This doesn't need to turn into a farce. I know for a fact
that if I claim this is a problem, and if I check into rehab for any period of time, every single person who is currently mad at me will forgive me unconditionally. Some of you will support me even harder, because our culture loves comeback stories. I know that all it takes is a few weeks in a resort-like rehab clinic. You don't need a doctor to say I'm cured, you don't need a report detailing my recovery, you don't need to any kind of verifiable proof whatsoever that suggests I've changed in any way. You just need to physically see me walk in and out of a building that says "Rehab" on the side and that is literally all you'd need to forgive me. As easy as that is, I'm not going to do it for two reasons. For one, it's just a shallow, ridiculous play that I want no part of. It's like a puppet show for adults. The reason puppet shows are entertaining when you're a kid is because you can't see the strings
. Once you see the strings, the magic's gone and you're just watching a guy playing with dolls and going through the motions. How is that a rewarding experience? And beyond that, I'm not a sex addict. I'm just not. It's not a disease I suffer from, it's not a problem, it's never physically hurt in any way I didn't want it to hurt. I just really, really like it. And I'm really, really good at it. I don't want to say I'm the best, just yet. A few people have been calling me "the Tiger Woods of fucking," and that might be a bit premature, but I don't think it's too far off, either. I certainly want to be the best, and I won't rest until I am, but for now I'm just a guy who really likes putting my dick in things. Any guy in the audience pretending he isn't the exact same way is a dirty, filthy liar.
And finally, I am Tiger Woods Seriously. Do you even get that?Tiger Fucking Woods.Daniel O'Brien is a sports/fucking analyst for ESPN.
