So, I watched Tiger Woods’ statement earlier today. I will give you my thoughts although (I must be honest here) they do not matter in the slightest.
I thought that it was obvious that he had put a good deal of thought into his statement. He struck me as sincere, but in control of his emotions. I dunno if that’s a good thing or not. People, in general, are slow to forgive. They are especially slow to forgive when an apology isn’t perceived as heartfelt. One indicator of heartfeltedness (I made that word up just now, by the way. I know, I’m intelligent & creative like that.) is the degree of emotion or passion with which the apology is made. I imagine that he wasn’t weepy & shaky enough for some. However, let’s think about this for a sec.
He became an international superstar by being the absolute, hands down, best golfer in the world. He accomplished this by being in almost complete control of his body & mind. Part of that is controlling your emotions. Note that I’m not saying that you don’t have emotions, merely that you don’t let them get out of control. Any good golfer will tell you that you can’t start getting emotionally out of control during a tournament. If you play that way, you usually make a lot more mistakes. So Tiger Woods has gotten where he is because he has spent his entire life, quite literally, turning himself into a golf machine. When you train & work as intensely & frequently as he has for the vast majority of his life, you don’t simply “turn it off” whenever you want.
When he makes a mistake on the golf course, he gets frustrated initially & then gets it back under control. He then assesses the situation, inputs the known & unknown data into his golf machine brain, & chooses the most likely path to success. He has worked insanely hard to make this process automatic. So, when he made a mistake in his personal life, he did the same thing. He got frustrated & withdrew for a few months & now he has made a move to get back on the road to success. Knowing this about him makes me believe he showed a great deal more emotion & passion in his statement than I was expecting & certainly more than he was comfortable with.
So I watch Tiger Woods’ statement & I see a man making a sincere, well thought out, & yes, a heartfelt apology. I also see a man who has an almost inhuman ability to control his emotions tearing up & speaking with a bit more passion than he ever has before. If you watch it again, you’ll notice that he still maintains almost complete control over his voice & body, but he tears up. All of this leads me to believe that he meant it & he meant it with all of his heart. But then again, I’m an insanely optimistic person.
We have a choice - accept what he said or don’t. I almost always make the choice to assume the best. I choose the same in this case because I hope others forgive me.
The road he walks from here on is what matters now.
I watched it. I was kind of underwhelmed.
I understand the importance of hitting key points, but delivering a written apology hurts one’s credibility and sincerity.
That said, I didn’t really feel like I was owed an apology, so I’ll take him at his word.