Tiger Woods is really mad at Dan Jenkins. He is angry because Jenkins wrote an fake interview with Tiger saying all sorts of unfriendly things about Tiger in Golf Digest. Tiger responded posting a retort to the article on Derek Jeter’s website requesting that Jenkins apologize.
I do not understand why Tiger felt the need to reply to Jenkins. Or why he felt the need to do it on Jeter’s website. It was last year at this time that Tiger was angry with another golf journalist in Brandel Chamblee. Chamblee wrongly called Tiger a cheater and the heat from the article forced Chamblee out his role as a writer. Chamblee managed to keep his job at Golf Channel but only by the hair on his chinny chin chin. Tiger did not respond to Chamblee’s article by writing his own article. He took to the airways lofting threatening verbiage suggesting Golf Channel might want to fire Chamblee for his poorly written article.
The difference in this case is that Tiger has some control over what Golf Channel does. Golf Channel is really scared of Tiger, probably with due cause. Tiger is still the king of golf, particularly with the fans, and if he boycotts Golf Channel they would be in trouble. In this most recent case he has no real means of retribution against Dan Jenkins. The Tiger camp tried to be as nasty as they could in writing a letter to Conde Nast. They said “We hope you’ll agree that what credibility the magazine still has requires [an apology].” As a person who is working out here in the real world, I abhor statements like this. It is like when a manager says “I trust you will do what is right” which is code for do it the way he thinks is the right way.
I know that Tiger is a loyal person, but he needs to fire Mark Steinberg. Not because Jenkins suggested that Tiger likes to fire people. Nobody likes to fire people. Well, maybe Donald Trump, but not most normal people. Mark Steinberg has mismanaged Tiger each and every time Tiger needs a public relations fix. It started after hydrant-gate, with the odd public apology Tiger made in his suit. Why would he let Tiger do that? Kobe never did. Why go on television and look more like Bill Clinton than an athlete? Someone on his PR team should have said “Tiger, you are an athlete you do not owe anyone any apology outside of your wife and children.” The poor interview on Golf Channel, yes he can control Golf Channel, but everyone knew that and didn’t expect tough questions. The whole stunt gained Tiger nothing. His PR effort earned an F then, and earned another F for this Jenkins deal.
I have always contended that Tiger should have gone on the Oprah show. Give her one interview if he felt he needed to get his side of the story out there. She would have asked tough questions and he would have answered them, and as his fans we would have appreciated and respected his honesty for doing it. But still… he is an athlete, and his personal issues should not be put on trial.
The article written by Chamblee was also badly butchered by Tiger’s PR team. It looked from the on-air comments that he was having Steinberg attack Golf Channel instead of Tiger just flatly saying, Brandel was wrong and I hope he will apologize for his mistake. Brandel did later offer an extremely weak attempt at an apology, but I doubt Tiger was satisfied by it.
Most recently, we have this rift with Jenkins. By responding to Jenkins, Tiger actually did the exact opposite of what he hoped to achieve. I think more people went to read the article because of Tiger’s response than would have read it in the first place. I saw some comments from folks when the article was first published by people here on the TST forum, but I have never liked reading Jenkins so I didn’t even bother to read the article. Then came Tiger’s rebuttal article, and only then did I read the “interview.” Tiger brought way more attention to the article by responding than if he had just figured that it was an old man writing an article in a pretty obscure golf magazine. If Jenkins had written the article in the New York Times, or even Sports Illustrated, then the response might have made sense to me. Tiger’s PR firm drove more people to read the article than would have in the first place. That is just dumb.
In some weird way Tiger validated the article. Jenkins wanted to get under Tiger’s skin and he was successful beyond Jenkins wildest imagination. Tiger should have just ignored it and moved on. If asked about it, say he doesn’t bother to read such trash as Dan Jenkins. Or even better, say he sometimes reads it when he wants to take a nap but rarely gets past the first sentence. As a fan of golf and reader of golf magazines, I rarely read Jenkins. He is prone to droning on about nothingness and then trying to lecture me on why Ben Hogan was the greatest human to walk the earth. He just seems like an old guy at my golf club who always wants to tell me how much better it was in the old days. I think most golf fans would have agreed with Tiger.
So you might be saying Tiger should just fire his PR firm. I hold the contention that Steinberg is in charge of his PR and therefore should be responsible for these failings. Steinberg has mismanaged Tiger’s PR at ever opportunity. Tiger should fire him and look for someone with more PR experience to replace him. At the very least they should agree that Steinberg will no longer handle Tiger’s PR.
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You’re assuming a few things, but perhaps most importantly, given the subject, that Steinberg is the one pushing this. For all you know, Tiger forced Steinberg to do this against Mark’s advice.
Responding to an article or accusation doesn’t validate it, not sure why some people believe that. If you are falsely charged with a crime, ignoring it won’t keep you out of jail.
Misinformation is written almost every day on TST forum and in most cases the moderators, admins, and other members correct the poster. If we followed your logic, we should ignore misinformation to avoid validating it.
Tiger is likely tired of people using his past to profit from. He has kids and every time an article like that gets published, they likely pay for it. Maybe GD should fire Jenkins instead.
@newtogolf I never said it validated the article, but rather it sent people to go read it. The first sentence of Tiger’s rebuttal is to tell people not to read it, which is like saying don’t think about pink elephants. I would be willing to bet that Tiger’s article sent at least 2x the number of people who would have normally read it to go read it. He himself gave the article as much readership as it did by it being published by Golf Digest.
I have no idea if what this does to his kids if anything. I feel that the skit by Saturday Night Live in which they say that Elin beat him with a golf club because he was cheating on her with a boatload of women would do 10x the harm than this poorly written article. I didn’t hear anything from Tiger’s camp about that nor has anyone from SNL been fired. My point is let’s have a little perspective when considering that this article says nothing that hasn’t been already said a number of times.
@Erik Yes, you are right. I think much of this may be driven by Tiger himself. But it is the job of the PR person to convince Tiger that he is making a mistake to not listening to him.
Mr. Hepp,
Your response to Erik doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Imagine the conversation: “Well Steiny, you were right after all. I never should have responded to that old codger Jenkins. I wish I would have listened to you. But… You really should have done a better job convincing me that you were right. So this is really your fault after all. You’re fired.”
Hmmmm…..
Although shrouded in a joke, you do exactly the same as what Jenkins did (to Tiger) to Donald Trump.
You are using a TV persona to slight a person, just as Jenkins portrays Tiger based on cliches constructed from sound bites, occasionally questionable PR and myths.
As for Tiger appearing on Oprah? Tough questions? You have got to be joking. Oprah doesn’t ask tough questions. Did you see the Lance Armstrong interview? She could have asked some tough questions, but she chose not to. Tiger would have been provided with a similar soft place to land. But, as you assert, Tiger’s business is Tiger’s business, so what is the difference between a comfy couch confessional and a cringe inducing “apology” in a suit?
But again, you are telling Tiger how he should have handled this, accusing him of allowing himself to be told how to handle things. He may well be very happy with the letter. There is more than one way to stand up to a petty, ignorant, humourless golf writer. Tiger’s way, whether or not Steinberg pulled the strings may have been the right way. But as iacas suggested, it may have had nothing to do with Steinberg.
Everyone needs to lay off Tiger and his decisions. None of us can relate to his life and the situations he has to deal with. I had the opportunity to have Chris Como as my swing coach for a couple years, I like that hire by Tiger!
jwoodgolf says:
had the opportunity to have Chris Como as my swing coach for a couple years,
Why didn’t you have him coach you?
What made you knock back the opportunity?
A cpl of things: first, TW has very few people that he trusts implicitly and Steinberg is one of them. Steiny has only one client, that being TW and Woods loves that. Woods loves to fire people but he & Steinberg are joined at the hip. Secondly, Oprah washed her hands of him when he wouldn’t answer to being black, rather he was “cablanasian”, Caucasian, Black & Asian.
Dan Jenkins is a creative writer for Golf Digest. Most of us laughed our a**es off at the article…as we do for many of Jenkins’ articles and books.
If Tiger did not like it, that is his business. His pouty insult was just that…a pout. I look forward to the day (I guess it hasn’t arrived yet) where the media and public, stop giving a damn what he says, thinks or does. He is one of the 2 greatest players to ever pick up a golf club. Just like the other player he shares this mantle with, he will retire great. Unlike the other player, Woods will retire……..alone in so many ways.
I hope Fuzzy Zoeller buys Dan Jenkins a good steak the next time he sees him.
Tiger cops so much smack due to his high profile. We tend to forget the guy is only human and outburst is normal. I’d be mad if someone wrote unsolicited smack about me! I think he does well for the most part to keep his cool.