Tiger's Tears

I was thinking about my friend the GolferGirl today, because we usually meet on Wednesday for coffee. During the summer this becomes a scheduling problem, because the First Tee takes up a lot of her time.

Lately we've seen a lot of bad behavior in the sports world.

Okay, that sounds downright silly. More correctly, we 've come to expect bad behavior in the sports world.

But good news in the sports world is still news. Recently, Tiger Woods (definitely my main man in Golf, followed by The Shark) won a huge victory. He celebrated by sobbing openly and dedicating the victory to his deceased Dad.

I hope every future pro golfer saw and understood: Golf is a gentleman's game. There are nine core values taught to anyone who learns golfing from a golf pro.

Tiger has taken a huge amount of flack in his career, not the least of which was for his minority heritage. I thought Tiger handled it with aplomb.

I've heard it said that a real man only cries on three occasions: when Old Yellar is shot, when Dumbo is separated from his mother, and when a man loses his own mother. These are all metaphors for one single truth: the loss of something truly worthwhile, be it personal or universal to all men, is dispensation from the "men don't cry" rule.

I saw only positive reaction from any sportscaster or columnist to Tiger's tears. We can celebrate with Tiger and we can mourn with Tiger. Earl Woods will always be a giant in the sports world; Tiger is his legacy to us. Tiger's tears belong to us.

Real gentleMEN do cry. And we cry with them.

pb

Little Pond