Phil's big day a blessing for PGA

By Matt Vachlon

Phil needed this. His wife needed this. His family needed this.

But the PGA needed this more.

I mean they really, really needed this.

When Phil Mickelson’s putt on 18 clinched his third victory at the Masters and led to his ensuing embrace with his wife, Amy, it may have brought about one of the more touching sports moments in recent memory, but it very likely caused some of the PGA’s big wigs to high five as well.

And they’d be smart to cash in on it.

I’m not trying to be crass. There is nothing more touching in sports than raw emotion in its truest form and this was a prime example. While I will not pretend to know what Mickelson and his family have been through over the past year in dealing with Amy’s and his mother’s breast cancer, the fact is it had to be hellish.

So the Mickelsons were understandably ecstatic to have something positive happen.

But if you’re the PGA, you also had to be ecstatic.

You see, the coverage leading up to this week wasn’t about Mickelson. It was about Tiger. That’s not a total shock. After all, Tiger is back and unquestionably he’s the straw that stirs the PGA’s drink. Add to the fact that he kept himself in the running to win the tournament all the way through Sunday, and you can see why much of the coverage was warranted.

The problem is, Tiger still has a bit of an image problem right now. The resulting chaos doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon and the PGA desperately needs to distance itself from this.

However, thanks to one of the most ironic weekends in sports history it now has an opportunity to do so.

Sure a noticeably rusty Woods gutted out a tie for fourth place at his first tournament in five months. But his absence was due to self-induced marital issues. Mickelson also had distractions which kept him away from the game of golf. However, his distractions were of the life or death variety and were beyond his control.

Phil ended up the winner, both athletically and morally.

An added plus is that Phil Mickelson is not some Johnny-come-lately with a great story. He’s a pillar of the sport, as evidenced by the winning of his third green jacket and fourth Major and, as a result, he’s one of the few who can rival Tiger’s popularity.

Let me be clear, I’m still not an advocate for making athletes into role models, as I explained here . But what happened at Augusta on Sunday was something so truly special on an emotional level and so badly needed for the sport that the PGA would be foolish to not try and capitalize on it.

Woods owes the public no apology

By Matt Vachlon

At the end of the day it really only matters what Elin Nordegren thinks.

Whether or not the number of women Tiger Woods has had an affair with reaches 100 or had stopped at one, I stand by this statement. So no matter what Woods says in his much publicized apology Friday, you really shouldn’t take much notice. It’s just not that important.

Simply put, just because the 24-hour news cycle reports something, that doesn’t make it automatically pertinent to our lives. We’ve reached a point where we really need to start thinking for ourselves when it comes to these things.

Now before you jump on me for being a womanizer or someone who doesn’t support the sanctity of marriage, let me clarify. From a moral standpoint I find Woods’ infidelity utterly reprehensible. In fact, the number of women coming forward has already reached a point that is so high in my mind that I’m pretty much numb to it now. And I know that I would personally never dream of cheating on my girlfriend/wife.

But that doesn’t mean that what he has done has affected me in any way. And it shouldn’t for you either.

For starters, can you honestly say that your being a fan of Tiger Woods stems from his being married and having children? After all, he’s been a pro since 1996, won his first of 14 majors in 1997 and it wasn’t until 2004 that he was married and 2007 when his first child was born. So unless you’re somehow related to Elin, or are Jesper Parnevik, sorry, that argument doesn’t fly.

Additionally, does what Tiger did really impact your enjoyment of the game of golf? I agree that he has certainly given himself, and to a certain extent the PGA, a black eye in terms of harming his image and losing endorsements, but most of that image was built on winning golf tournaments. It’s not as if Woods was caught taking steroids or other performance enhancing drugs or doing anything else that would compromise his legacy relative to the sport. Regardless of how this apology goes, he will still be four behind Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major titles heading into his next major.

I also never really expected an apology. As an adult, it would be naïve of me to assume that any athlete is the perfect role model that he or she make themselves out to be. All I have to do is think back to some of my teammates in high school and I know not everyone is a standup individual.

And please don’t tell me that children who look up to him are victims here either. That’s where parents come in, to provide proper perspective. After all, a young aspiring golfer only needs to adopt Woods’ work ethic, not his personality.

Who knows what Woods will ultimately say Friday. But I advise you to save yourself the trouble of worrying because what you think is the least of Tiger’s worries. Ask Elin.