There was a moment yesterday afternoon when I had both Sports Illustrated’s live blog of Tiger Woods’ first competitive round of golf open and my Twitter feed following various tweets about the event…all while receiving text messages about his and others’ scores. Essentially, I was gathering just about every opinion, update and celebration millions were making during Tiger’s return.
I imagine there were others who were doing all these things while watching TV at the same time. Apparently, simply watching golf’s great moments isn’t enough anymore. We need to be plugged in, connected and dialed in. We’re not satisfied unless we have professional sportswriters live-blogging about when Tiger does and doesn’t smile.
It’s not a criticism. I’m as guilty and in love with the social media craze as the next guy. I rarely watch a final round without opening Twitter to share and read thoughts. It just strikes me how much it’s all changed in a short period of time. I remember watching golf with my father and not even being able to text our buds when something cool happened (cell phones didn’t exist).
The funny thing is — we get these four hours of watching, blogging and hearing about everything Woods’ does on the golf course and we stick microphones in his face and ask countless questions as soon as he’s done…and we still feel like he doesn’t give us enough. We want more of Tiger. The real Tiger. Some authenticity, please?
It’s just a musing, but maybe we’re going about it the wrong way. We’re so hellbent on covering everything Woods does we drive him away. I imagine that level of celebrity can be trapping in a way I couldn’t begin to understand or express.
Perhaps, if we want a more authentic Tiger, we should ease up and step back. Stop documenting every smile and grimace. Give the man some space…maybe he’ll step out of his cage.
