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Is Tiger Woods back on the fairway?

Sport

It attracted the sort of public focus that is usually reserved for a Presidential speech and a level of intense anticipation that is more typical for an Oscar announcement, but the grovelling 13-minute Tiger Woods apology on Friday afternoon was little more than a polished, practiced PR act.

Tiger’s ‘piece-to-camera’ was littered with carefully placed eyes, rehearsed intonation and strategic messages. Few would doubt Tiger’s sorrow and regret but it was a case of too little, too late for most media observers, some of whom felt that Brand Woods had suffered more damage than good after Friday’s belated first post scandal appearance.

Woods and his team made it far too easy for PR practitioners to pick holes – too formal, too clinical, and too forced, no questions, no interaction, just a preached apology enveloping an angry tirade at the media’s pursuit of his family.

Such is Tiger’s apparent ignorance of his celebrity, he does not realise that it is precisely him who could have salvaged the situation. But that is what a PR team is supposed to be for (or should that be fore!). Had Friday’s speech been held within a fortnight of his transgressions coming to light, ideally in a more informal setting with an open approach to media questioning, he almost certainly would not have been stuck in such an almighty hole.

There are plenty of sportsmen (and perhaps women) that would learn a valuable lesson from the Tiger Woods case study of how to get PR so wrong. But at least now he has emerged from his hiding place, he can start the all-important first steps on way to mending his dented image. It is what he does from here on that will continue this process. For the sake of golf and of sport in general, let’s hope that Tiger Woods has learned his lessons on and off the course.

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