Tiger Woods: He may not be silver, but he's a silverback (or actually, the alpha male)

My earlier post on Tiger Woods -- well, forget about it. It appears now that there was motive and opportunity, both for Tiger to get some and for Elin to find out what he was getting. Not that domestic violence is ever justified, but I think we can understand why she probably took a few swings at him.

So what happened?

I haven't calculated timelines, but I think that Tiger may have lost both his moral compass and a controlling influence in his life when his father died in May 2006. The current statements from Jaimee Grubbs claim a 31-month affair; let's figure this out: November 2008 is 12 months ago, November 2007 is 24 months ago, November 2006 is 36 months ago. So the affair (at least that one) began around April 2007; just about one year after his father died. There's no significance to that anniversary; people recover from mourning at different rates.

But what else happened in April 2007? From the Zach Johnson entry on Wikipedia:

"On April 8, 2007, Johnson won the Masters Tournament in Augusta by a margin of 2 strokes over Tiger Woods, Retief Goosen, and Rory Sabbatini."

That's right; on nearly the anniversary of his father's death, Tiger had a chance to win the Masters again, and got beat by the (at the time) 56th-ranked player in the world. Thinking in his place, I'd be upset and frustrated and maybe even a bit concerned about the state of my abilities. I'd perhaps wanted to show my father, with whom I had a documented love-hate relationship, that I was my own man, that I could win without him in the same place that I had won with him. And just maybe, I'd want to prove something to myself.

Tiger Woods is not a silverback; he's an alpha male, perhaps the ultimate alpha male in sports today (cases could be made for Roger Federer or Ronaldo or Beckham or Kobe Bryant or A-Rod ... might want to think about those last two ...), but Tiger is an industry and an enormously recognized figure. And the thing about the alpha male is --- they get all the babes. Not just the best one, the alpha female, but ALL of them.

And unfortunately in April 2007 I think he decided it was time to prove it.