What price values?
Tiger Woods’ apology for his “transgressions” included a line that I keep tripping over. “I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves.” True to his values, he says.
Three women, Rachel Uchitel, Jaimee Grubbs and Kalika Moaquin, have claimed or admitted to sleeping with Woods, who, for the record, has been married since 2004. If these women are telling the truth, a seemingly safe bet, Tiger is a womanizer.
I don’t offer that as a criticism. On the contrary, I understand why a man would be a womanizer, a term that carries a negative connotation but simply means a man who pursues casual sexual relationships with multiple women. Women are sexy and they can make for great friends and companions. If a man who is attracted to women isn’t the settling type, womanizing makes sense for him.
Sleeping with at least two women at any given time (your wife and your mistress) points to an active libido, and it’s been reported that Tiger lamented to Grubbs that marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. If true, taken together, the picture that comes into focus is that of a man for whom marriage was a calculation, a means to commercially viable and lucrative end.
Elin Woods née Nordgren could just as well have been another woman of suitable stock who could afford to choose to earn a living as a nanny, albeit for a wealthy couple. Her marriage to Tiger wasn’t about her as an individual or them as a couple. It was about Tiger and his brand.
It still is. According to a piece written by Gerald Posner, Tiger is paying his wife $5 million now and sweetening the terms of their prenuptial agreement. If Elin stays with Tiger for a few more years, she could then opt to walk with $80 million.
But that’s less than the amount Tiger would stand to lose if his endorsers who pay him an estimated $100 million a year walked away, so the ink on that revised prenup is probably dry by now.
Tiger has, indeed, been true to his values. It must really suck to him that he has to say otherwise.