By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
The mercurial rise of superstar golfer Tiger Woods and his imminent potential fall tell a tale that could only be realized under global corporate capitalism.
By the time Tiger burst onto the pro golf tour, he was already a legend – the greatest amateur golfer ever.
He would best all the established pros at the tender age of 21. He would make his first $100 million at the tender age of 21. He would become a world-famous phenom at the tender age of 21. And he would become both hero and role model to hundreds of millions at the tender age of 21. Moreover, he was baby-faced and squeaky-clean.
By the age of 33 he would be the richest athlete ever – a veritable billionaire – and be recognized by a majority of golf fans as the greatest golfer ever.
And everything seemed to come so easy. For all of his adult life, everybody had been telling him how special he was. Just as fans lined up to plead for his autograph, corporations would line up to pony up tens of millions of dollars a year to exploit his magnetic image.
Here was a young man who had everything. Now one of the richest people in the world and one of the most famous, the world was his oyster.
Blessed also with good health, athletic prowess, a gorgeous fashion-model wife and two terrific little kids, he seemed like a man who had everything a man could possibly want.
But it still wasn’t enough! The fawning fans and the capricious captains of corporate capitalism forever telling him how special he was inevitably convinced him that he was special.
And that because he was special there could never be enough – enough money, enough fame, enough fortune, enough toys, enough toadies, or even enough sex.
And because he was special he would never have to pay for his indiscretions. He would probably never even be caught and even if he was caught there would be no consequences.
That is the essential ethos of corporate capitalism – that for the special few there can never be enough.
At the tender age of 33, Tiger Woods was on target to gross well over five billion dollars over the course of his lifetime and become of the 100 richest people in the world. But he just couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants when he was away from his voluptuous mate. So what, though? No one would ever find out and even if they did there would be no adverse consequences.
And then came that bizarre one-car crash at his posh home in that gated community in central Florida. And everything began to unravel.
At the time of this writing, one New York woman has alleged an affair with Woods that began 22 months ago. And a second woman – who initially denied published reports of an affair with Woods – is now expected to admit to an affair.
Moreover, the Chicago Sun-Times has reported, citing reliable sources, that Tiger Woods has offered his wife, Elin, $60 million to stay married to him for two more years in order to create a veneer of normalcy. (The original pre-nup limited her to $20 million if the marriage lasted 10 years.)
But maybe some good will come of it.
Tiger Woods does indeed still have everything a man could ever want. He doesn’t need any more majors win s. He doesn’t need any more sponsorships. And he probably doesn’t need any more women.
Why not now use his fame and fortune to fight for the victims of the corporate capitalism that spawned The Rise And Fall of Phenom Tiger Woods?
He may no longer be perfect, but he still commands the wealth and the charisma to make a real difference in the world. What has he got to lose?