[12 piece bucket]

Daly has never been mistaken for someone worthy of emulation! Unless of course your thing is morbidly obese (pre-surgery), alcoholic, mulletted knuckle-dragging neanderthal golfing savants! Talent without character is a milestone around your neck. I guess I lost my way in the discussion. I agree that there was a lot of "massaging" going on as far as Tiger's public personae.Anyone taken by surprise is naive i.e. that the public and private do not match up. However, if you are not surprised by the disparity between the two then you are jaded at best! I have already stated that Tiger had demonstrated to me that he had embraced his larger than lifeness by small incidents of poor self-control (profanity and compulsive gambling...something yet to make headlines). Robert Redford wisely said that success is something you spar with, but never embrace.The biggest sucker in the media-hype that surrounds Tiger is...Tiger. I think the strongest indictment may be directed towards those that think that the only important thing about Tiger is his talent, or his march into the history books, not his character. Madonna (the moderately talented Louise Veronica Ciccone) is famous, Mother Theresa is GREAT. Fame is fickle and fleeting, but greatness is sublime. It is a mistake to fragment people in this manner. It suggests a gross misunderstanding of humanity. Talent merely provides the context for the development of their character.A means to an end, never an end in itself. I always thought that is what Earl Woods meant with regards to Tiger. You have talent...you are your character. For the purpose of this discussion I do not care if you are a Kantian ethicist, or an evangelical Christian...character counts.It is not a thing, it is the thing. As Bucket has suggested the grotesqueness of his transgressions is telling, and does not automatically fall under a general category of misdeeds. Morality is always the issue. In my rant I am suggesting that I care more for Tiger's personal struggle than his public future. The consequences of his actions is not what puts him in jeopardy, but rather the source of those actions. Great people build altars (their talent is tethered to the sacred trust that comes with it)...famous people pitch tents (they eventually believe that there talent is self-originating and will therefore deny its primary purpose of it in the first place)

There may be dirt on the likes of Jack Nicklaus that has not come to light. But I am almost sure that he did not conduct himself like certain forum members would in a goat paddock. So I will tend to think that Jack Nicklaus did what he did as a golfer while doing what needs to be done as a husband and father. Tiger will never challenge JWN in my mind ever again. If this is a minority opinion then I will take that as affirmation.

There is no doubt that the hoochies are complicit. But like marriage it is never a 50/50 proposition. It is an "all in" kinda thing.

I do believe that Tiger can make a character comeback, lest you think me to be a pharisee. But it is on that basis alone that he will make a real comeback. I wish him well.

Post of the year . . . maybe of all time.