David Feherty Defends Tiger Woods

Despite five wins on the European Tour during his 20-year professional career, most people know David Feherty as the on-course analyst for CBS' golf coverage. He's fantastic at his current gig, though occasionally his political views obscure his television work.

Feherty is in Sioux Falls, SD this week to headline the South Dakota Make-a-Wish Foundation's annual golf tournament (it's his ninth straight appearance), and in an interview with the Argus Leader's Mick Garry he talked about his controversial comments regarding the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader.

More interesting, though, Feherty also defended Tiger Woods' British Open performance.

Not so much the on-course derailment, but Woods' antics as a consequence of his poor play. Shane Bacon documented the atrocities here, concluding that, "... Tiger has billions of people that follow his every move, including a lot of kiddos that would love to be the next Tiger. While Woods isn't exactly the one showing them the proper way to helicopter a wedge down the fairway, he is acting like, for lack of a better term, a baby on the course."

I'm of two minds on this. Woods is the most scrutinized athlete on the planet. Networks regularly televise every one of his swings no matter how many pages deep he might be on the leaderboard. To some it's annoying, but Tiger drives ratings and ratings pay the bills.

But as Shane mentions, like it or not, Tiger's a role model. And the on-course pouting can get to be a bit much. Of course, anybody who has played golf knows that it's an exercise in patience and sooner or later, there's a good chance you're going to snap. It happens every day. The difference, as I mentioned above, is that we don't have cameras in our face after we drop-kick our drive short of the women's tees.

Feherty reminds the self-righteous set to try to keep things in perspective:

"Those critical forget about what he did a couple of weeks before for the troops at the tournament he put on (the AT&T National). All the things he did at Walter Reed, all the things that tournament is about. And he bangs his club here or there? I was fly fishing in Colorado - I didn't see any of it. I've read about it since then. If you play golf for a living and you don't swear or throw the occasional club, you should be disqualified. It's not that kind of a game - it's not meant to be played with all the hushed tones. You're supposed to show your emotions."

Exactly. Yes, I could stand to see fewer Woods' temper tantrums, but it's part of the deal. I suspect he's not changing, so either the networks should limit Tiger's face time, or we should quit bellyaching about the occasional club toss.

By the way, I'm convinced that the loudest critics are also those people who watch golf telecasts with phone in hand, ready to call in any infraction, no matter how trivial. Because, frankly, that's how busybodies roll.

Via Local Knowledge Blog