Intervention Cyber-Style

The year is 1950 and Ben Hogan is sitting in the grillroom at Shady Oaks Country Club. Surrounding him are his wife and closest friends. One by one, they tell Hogan that he has to seize the opportunity to change. He has survived his terrible accident and it's time to let people into his life.

The time has come for the Ice Man to melt. The Hawk must become dove-like. Hogan has to thank the people who have supported him by coaxing him back to the game following his recovery from the injuries he sustained in the terrible car crash a year before. He needs let the fans who follow him know that he cares as much about them and they do about him. A smile here, a nod of the head here. Simple warmth and human kindness.

Of course, this never happened.

His accident surely changed Hogan's body, but it didn't change the way he went about his business. Such an intervention, a contemporary phenomenon, is hard to imagine. The 50s were such different times.

Today. interventions are as common as trips into rehab. Tiger Woods has been to rehab, receiving treatment for a disease that the DSM-IV doesn't even recognize. Since no one in the golf press is really able to get next to the guy, a number of scribes have done their interventions cyber-style in an effort to chide Woods into becoming a kinder and gentler player.

There have always been grumblings about Woods' on course behavior. Some have been persuasive, like Mark Kiszla's A little deportment, please. The most relevant were written by guys like Kiszla before Woods' fall from grace. The worst of them are being written now; convenient, snide, righteous little reminders to Woods of his post-debacle promise to be a better man and to show more respect for the game.

Tiger Woods is the man he is, no better and no worse. He's not Bobby Jones, or Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan or Phil Mickelson. His style as a player and a man are well known. He is not the kinda guy I'd like to hang out with and I find his fist pumps out of place.

But, most people who watch golf like Woods' fist pumps, they like a player who exults and who seethes and that's Woods. If Woods goes on to eclipse Nicklaus' record, he'll do it as he has done it. For his style is part of his substance. In that way, Tiger Woods is just like Ben Hogan.

Hogan was a frigid counterpoint to Woods' inferno. But, Hogan's cool was calculated. His unapproachable style merely added to his mystique. Woods, too, must know the effect his temper has on other players. His on course manner has always been intimidating, even back to his amateur days. If we measure Woods by his success on the course, can we really argue with his results?

So, even though I don't much like him, I hope that Woods stay true to himself.