Yep. And I’m entitled to call them a dick for it, b/c that’s what they are.
Nothing wrong with criticism, but when it’s as capricious and baseless as the (now irrefutably debunked) suggestion that he was uncharacteristically faking an injury for sympathy, it becomes a little obnoxious.
How will it feel to be watching the British next month knowing that it will really only be an exhibition tournamnent without a truely valid winner?
During the tournament I kept thinking he came back too early and may do permanent harm. Watch the ratings for the rest of the majors.
Of course they are. And some folk’s opinions make them assholes.
When asked about the knee he said it wasn’t a problem. My take is that he doesn’t like to make excuses. He is under no obligation to disclose his physical condition to anyone, and as he said in his statement he didn’t want it to be a distraction for the tournament.
The ACL was torn last year. The stress fracture was discovered prior to this year’s Memorial.
I think that’s taking it a bit far. Granted, I’d rather have a win with Tiger in the field, but odds are better than not that he’d end up not winning the tournament even if he was healthy. I’m basing that on the fact that he’s lost more majors than he has won.
If Brady tore his ACL at the start of the season next year, nobody is going to put an asterisk next to the name of the eventual Super Bowl winner.
I think a more valid analogy would be if the entire Patriots team was somehow prevented from being able to play the season.
Golf is an individual sport. The individual is the “team.” Major tournaments played without the best player in the world (and not by a a trivial margin either, but by a historically unprecedented gap) are always going to be perceived as less than complete. My calling them “exhibitions” was an exaggeration, but I do think that, fair or not, the winners are going to have those “*Tiger didn’t play” notations beside their names.
Fine. That is your take. But I, for one, decline to accept an individual’s unsupported statements as “irrefutable” proof of anything.
Of course he is under no obligation to disclose anything about his health (short of any professional requirements a la drug testing). I don’t really care one way or another. But at this point all we have is a celebrity releasing the material he chooses to in the manner he chooses to. If we were to hear from his doctors, that would be more proof, tho not irrefutable. If he were to release his x-ray/MRI results, roll up his pants leg and show the incisions, we’d get ever closer to “irrefutable” proof.
Agree completely.
Yeah, but Tiger won’t be playing because he’s injured. His body wasn’t perfect, it failed him.
It’d be different if he merely chose not to play. Then I could see the argument for an asterisk.
Being taken out of the sport due to an injury from the sport does not lessen the accomplishments of those who succeed in his absence.
If anything it shows how hard being on top of the sport can be on the body and those that will play in his absence have managed to remain injury free to their credit, not the opposite.
A valiant effort, but no sale.
Heh, some shining examples here to be sure. I reckon it’s only seeing what you want to see. Some would look at this and think aw, Phil missed a putt.
Drats!
I guess we’d better go back to the record books and add asterisks or “*Ben didn’t play” next to Slamming Sammy (2 of them), Cary Middlecoff, and Bobby Locke! 
Heck, while we’re at it, we might as well note “*Bobby has retired” for at least a couple of years after 1930, and “*Byron’s kicking back on the ranch” after 1946!
Asserting that the winners of any tournament Tiger doesn’t participate in should somehow question their achievement is almost as ridiculous as the assertions that were made that Tiger was somehow faking his injury, or is somehow over-stating his injury now. Tiger doesn’t play in every tournament as it is. Which isn’t to say that there won’t be questions asked about how Tiger would have done this year absent his knee injury. But players play the course, and the winner always is whomever does the best at that, and the fact that the world’s best player is absent doesn’t cheapen the result against everyone else.
lieu, if you didn’t care about my opinions of your opinion, you wouldn’t respond. You did, you do. And it was without merit at the time, and it still is without merit to question the veracity of people who have shown no evidence of being mendacious in the past. An Italian national team player rolling around on the pitch clutching his ankle? Yeah, healthy skepticism. Tiger? He’s never played up an injury before, he never uses his physical condition as an excuse for his tournament results, and so far as I recall, he’s never given a damn what the crowd is thinking about him and what he’s doing on the course. Under those circumstances, questioning his veracity in his physical response to his efforts on the course is just one more example of undeserved Tiger-bashing, prompted by simple jealousy over his success and fame.
Dinsdale, Tiger never said his knee was fine. He sees no reason to parade his physical condition around, since he doesn’t use it to excuse his results. Even during the tournament just finished, it wasn’t Tiger who was talking about the knee. So your constant insinuations that there is something not quite up and up about what is going on with Tiger are just more sour grapes. Would that you could differentiate your dislike of what the media do with Tiger (which drives even a large portion of his fans nuts) from your evaluation of Tiger the man himself.
Who said anything about irrefutable proof? That’s a bit of a strawman. If “irrefutable proof” were the standard every athlete could legitimately be called a liar.
Absent any evidence to the contrary, and bearing in mind that a particular individual has never been known to lie about such matters, claiming he is a faker is an assholish thing to do. As for a “celebrity” “releasing the material,” give me a break. He’s a world renowned athlete who issued a statement so that he would not have to answer endless questions about his health. You make it seem like it’s Britney Spears trolling for paparazzi.
And it is by no means all we have. We have countless news articles documenting his surgery, his rehab, and his practice routine. Unless all of those are worthless without irrefutable proof. Sort of like 99% of the news articles on any given day.
“Arnie got old overnight.”
“John Daly was drunk.”
Why do I suddenly have the Joe Lewis/Rocky Marciano exchange from Coming to America in my head right now?
“You know how old Arnold Palmer was when he played Jack Nicklaus? A hundred and thirty-seven years old!”
“I don’t care how old he was, he still got his ass whupped.”
Also, “John Daly was sober” might be more appropriate.
DS, I’ll thank you next time to parse what I say with some semblance of accuracy. I’ll also thank you not to presume, inaccurately again, to speculate what prompts me to feel differently about an individual than yourself.
Seeing you miss so badly with me instills no great confidence you’ve an appreciable insight into anyone else. Perhaps you’ve been stroked as eloquently as was Torrey Pines.
Of course, we have no way of knowing whether what he says is true or not, absent irrefutable proof. But, if you choose to believe that he is a generally honest person who has no reason to lie, especially when his words are being broadcast in print to most of the the civilized world, Tiger’s win at the Open was even more remarkable than it appeared to be.
Words, mere words. Worth as much as the rest of what you said. Like the bit about Tiger not really being hurt.
But you keep up your efforts to appear unconcerned. Someone might buy them. :dubious: