Tiger Woods Fires Back at Golf Journalist Dan Jenkins, Nobody Wins

Tiger is really angry about a fake article.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Today, in an article penned for The Players' Tribune, Tiger Woods laid into longtime golf journalist Dan Jenkins after reading a (fake) interview Jenkins wrote for the latest issue of Golf Digest, in which he jokingly claimed to be speaking with Woods.

Woods was furious about the piece, saying that it "fails as parody, and is really more like a grudge-fueled piece of character assassination." 

"Journalistically and ethically, can you sink any lower?" he asked.

As we all know, when he's busy not winning majors anymore (because, truly, the old Tiger would not have given a single fuck about this article), Woods keeps a hawkish eye on his public image. However, even after you read his response (brattishly titled "Not True, Not Funny"), it's hard to figure out why he's so mad. Prior to the publication of Woods' article, Golf Digest hadn't even published Jenkins' piece on their website. It was only available in print. 

So, the only people who would've read Jenkins' piece were those who happened to pick up the magazine. To be fair to Tiger, that's still a good amount of readers; Golf Digest's domestic circulation is reportedly 1.65M. But to be fair to Golf Digest, when any of their readers picked up the latest issue, they would've been greeted with this cover: 

1.

As you can plainly see, the interview is billed as fake. Also, the pictures used in the article are showing a man who is clearly not Tiger Woods. In his response, Tiger even makes a mention of the fact that the man is an actor. So, either Tiger doesn't understand what parody is, or he thinks Golf Digest's readers (read: people waiting in a golf course pro shop, people waiting in a dentist's offices) are dumber than a bag of bricks, and would confuse the article as being an real conversation with him. 

Once you get into the actual article, it's a bit easier to understand Tiger's angst. To be honest, the piece isn't terribly funny or original. Mostly, it just consists of Jenkins covering the well-tread territory of Tiger's career: adultery, coaching switches, and his current decline.

In a letter from Tiger's agency sent to Golf Digest, Tiger's representatives claim, "Mr. Jenkins has long held a personal hostility for Mr. Woods, a fact that is common knowledge in golf journalism." Based on what you read in his piece, that may be true. Passages like this are just petty (the bolded words are intended to be Jenkins' questions, the plain text should be read as Tiger's "response"): 


Not sure you're aware of this, but back when you were at the top of your game I was also the guy who said only two things could stop you from winning more majors than Jack: injury or a bad marriage. 

You wrote that?


In a moment of brilliance, yes.

You nailed it.

Basically, Jenkins is patting himself on the back because he managed to predict the two factors that would ultimately contribute to Tiger's downfall. Brilliant, indeed. After all, who could've foreseen that physical limitations and sexual temptation would get the best of a superstar athlete raking in millions of dollars per year? Tiger must be the first, right?

Then, Jenkins takes off for an extended beat about Tiger's notoriously bad restaurant etiquette: 


Have you ever regretted firing Butch Harmon after winning your first eight majors with him?

Butchie was making me tip too many people.


I don't get it. For a guy who can certainly afford it, you've become famous for being a bad tipper. It's almost like you take pride in it. 

I just don't understand why you're supposed to tip people for doing a job they're already getting paid to do.


In many cases tips are expected to be part of their salary.

So let 'em go find a better job.

On the one hand, yes, Tiger has long been rumored to be an inexcusably poor tipper. On the other hand, it's a joke that is thoroughly beat into the ground at this point, and probably should've been completely buried after Rick Reilly used it as an excuse to claim a moral high ground over Tiger back in March

This isn't to say that Tiger doesn't deserve to be the butt of someone's joke every now and then. People make jokes about Tiger all the time. In the wake of his infidelity scandal, it's to be expected. But that's also the problem. If you're going to devote printed pages to taking potshots at an easy target, then you should do better than the milquetoast takedown Jenkins and Golf Digest orchestrated.

Otherwise, the only way people are going to care about the "interview" is if the person you targeted is so rigidly protective of his own image that he decides to write a response to an article that roughly 1.5M people knew was fake and millions more didn't even know existed. Instead of fighting, maybe the two sides should just thank each other for the free publicity. 

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