If No One Else Will Say It...

I started playing golf when I was in middle school. I'd play a lot actually and got to be halfway decent. The thing about it was that golf was not my number one sport, in fact far from it, but everyone I played with went on to play golf in high school if I'm not mistaken.

There are distinct differences in my golf game today. Today, I don't play as much but enjoy going out on a nice day, throwing back some beers, having a good time with friends, and if I play well that's a bonus. I mean, sure if everything is going really bad, I'll get a little irritated, but the chances of that happening aren't really that high. I can pull something out of the woodworks every once in a while.

When I was younger, I have no idea why I played golf. I mean, I guess I liked it, but I was so competitive with myself that I got pretty mad at everything I did that wasn't exactly what Fred Couples would do. Fred Couples. There's a name for you. See, he was my favorite player, but even when I did something bad, I'd get angry, hit my club on the ground, maybe say something I shouldn't and maybe throw a club if I wasn't with my parents. You never saw someone like Freddy do that.

And then I saw the same immature and really classless actions on TV this past weekend.

Golf is supposed to be a "Gentlemen's" game and I think until you get older you don't really appreciate that.

So why when I turn on the TV to watch the US Open do I see the greatest player in the world throwing clubs, hitting the turf with his clubs and dropping inappropriate language like no one is watching?

Tiger Woods plays golf with a drive that is unmatched by anyone in the game. That's a fact whether you like it or not. I mean, even Johnny Miller was wondering when he was going to get "one of those uppercuts" from Tiger in celebration. He sure got some and rightfully so in what I suppose is a gutsy performance by Tiger, hitting the track on one good leg and winning.

But honestly, what I take away from the tournament is Tiger hitting that shot out of the fairway bunker on 16 or 17, throwing his club and dropping a "GD" bomb on the gallery and the millions watching world wide, and then dropping an "F Yeah" into the camera after making his put on 18 to force the playoff. Not to mention yesterday on Sportscenter he had to get "beeped" out during a conversation with Kenny Mayne.

You know, the thing is, you know Tiger has to know better than this. Or is supposed to. But I just don't think he cares. He doesn't care what you and I think about him. All he cares about is winning majors, making money, and then his wife and kid. Maybe not in that order, but the first one is solidified at the top. But he's Tiger Woods, he can do whatever he wants and he knows it. So who's going to hold him accountable for his classless actions? The PGA? They need him a lot more than he needs the PGA.

Tiger is in an interesting position. We talked about Jordan and Kobe the other week, but Tiger is really the only guy in the world at Jordan's level. And he is as businessman as well as a dominant "athlete." But Jordan was always a class act on the court, unless Reggie Miller was coming after him. Sure Jordan was the biggest trash talker ever, but he did in way that didn't require bad words and you never really noticed anyway.

It's Tiger Woods' world, and we live in it. And I'll have to accept that. But this guy doesn't respect the game of golf. He doesn't play it like a gentleman. Tiger may be the most successful player in the world who does more for his sport than anyone has probably ever done for their's in history. But he doesn't do it respecting the game or doing it the way it was meant to be played.

If Tiger Woods was just a business man worth the hundreds of millions that he is, the best clubs in America wouldn't allow a guy who acts the way he does on a golf course to be their member. They require class and respect, something that Tiger surely didn't show at Torrey Pines last week. I mean, I know it was a public course Tiger, but seriously.