Everyone in the world knows who Tiger Woods is, even people like myself who don’t know a single thing about golf can recognize Tiger Woods.  Of course, all we really know is the Disneyfied neutered representation of him made to appeal to a generic mass audience and used to pitch everything from razors to flavored water.  Of course, the lovable non-sexual inoffensive, virginal image of the golfer had nothing to do with reality. Turns out he likes ladies. Even ladies who aren’t his wife. Which is no reason to judge him, hell maybe his wife is kinky and is into threesomes or voyeurism or god knows what else. Problem is she doesn’t like it and she’s ready to leave him. And Tiger Woods is dealing with the problem the only way he knows how- by throwing money at it.

In this article detailing Tiger’s latest travails, turns out that Tiger is willing to pay his wife $5 million dollars immediately and $55 million payable in two years if she just stays with him.  That’s all she has to do, just not leave him. Is this what the world’s most famous sports celebrity has been relegated- paying millions of dollars for the privilege of not losing the companionship of one woman? Look, what Tiger Woods did was wrong, considering he hurt his wife badly enough that she wants to leave. He deceived her, destroyed her trust, and risked the integrity of their relationship. But this article isn’t about what Tiger did up to this point, it’s about what he is doing now that he in damage control mode.

The most likely scenario with Tiger is that he never grew up from the vantage point of learning to be a man and dealing with women. He was coddled and handled with kid gloves from day one by his father and then his entourage and achieved financial and career success early on. He never had to deal with the growing pains of other boys- trying to save for a car, or ask a girl on a date, or get rejected, or anything else of the like.  He probably had his agent or manager contact some girl he saw in the crowd and tell her that “Tiger Woods wants to see you for dinner tonight”, then she would get picked up by a limo and whisked away to some chic restaurant…. and of course, what girl would say no to that? Of course, I have no idea what Tiger’s early dating life was really like, but I do know that as a celebrity, it was markedly different from that of an average boy his age.

What that means is that in Tiger’s world, things that other boys had to work hard to get or figure out, such as dating ability and skills with women, were handed to Tiger on a silver platter. He didn’t have to work for any of it. His fame and his money did the picking up for him. Tiger gets what Tiger wants. Even if it’s bimbo women who aren’t his wife. So now that the crap has hit the fan and Tiger’s wife doesn’t love him enough to stay with a philandering Tiger, Tiger only knows one way to solve the problem- throw money at women, this one being his wife. More importantly, what this shows on a deeper love, is that his wife doesn’t love him. And maybe she never did. Look, finding out that your spouse is cheating on you can be a traumatic experience, which questions everything you’ve ever thought to be true about the relationship and makes you immediately think about leaving. If the other partner makes a heartfelt apologize with actionable steps to change, maybe with enough love and patience, the hurt can be minimized and forgiveness can be established. Maybe love isn’t enough and even with tremendous love, the relationship is shattered beyond repair. But what I do know is that money doesn’t buy forgiveness. Money doesn’t buy love. Money only buys greed.

And because Tiger never had to work at being a man in the world, he never had to develop the skills necessary to be one. To be the kind of man that women fall in love with just for being an actualized man. Just for being himself. Instead, Tiger is surrounded by people who love him for what he represents, not what he is. For his status and for his money. And so he tries to keep the people in his life with more money, rather than with more of himself. In the end, I can’t get around the fact that for all he’s done, Tiger still has to buy the affection and companionship of women with money, and for that reason, Tiger is a loser, and most tragically of all, there is no one in his life to tell him why.