Tiger Woods: Too Soon!

by Ned Frey

Dear Washington Post,

In your “interactive poll” on whether it is too soon for Tiger Woods to return to playing golf, you instructed those who selected the “not sure” response to “please explain in the comments.” So here is my explanation for responding that way.

Normally I would say yes, of course it is too soon. After all, Tiger Woods apparently committed adultery, and therefore should probably never be allowed to play golf again for the rest of his life. Or, at the very least, I think he should be prevented from playing golf for a very long time. Many years from now, when he’s in his 60s perhaps, he might be allowed to return and play on that old-man tour if he told us again how very sorry he is — but certainly not now.

Despite my certainty on this point, however, I chose “not sure” because it I had to consider a few conditions under which it might, in fact, be appropriate for him return to professional golf today. For example, if he played while wearing a large, red letter “A” on his Nike golf shirt, that might be acceptable. But I don’t know if Woods would be willing to do that, which accounts for at least part of the uncertainty expressed in my poll response.

Furthermore, this “scarlet letter” plan would raise a few uncertainties of its own. For example, what if the public were to mistake the letter for some kind of corporate-sponsorship logo? One way to counter this would be to require that an asterisk appear next to the A, along with a footnote on the back of his shirt that says: “*THIS MEANS I AM AN ADULTERER.” But then he might do something to hide the footnote, like tying a sweater around his waist. They could assess a one-stroke penalty every time he did that, of course — but only if they invented a special rule in advance to cover that situation.

So you see, Washington Post, deciding on when this man should be able to return to work is a complicated matter that involves many issues. While some people may be inclined to rush to judgment, I like to be fair and consider all sides of a question like this before coming down with a firm “yes” or “no.” After all, this is a man’s career we’re talking about.

Yours truly,

Ned in Connecticut

Ned Frey is a corporate writer who pens occasional reality show linkbait posts for Gawker as “MisterHippity.”