November is usually the time for the golf season to finally wind down. The PGA Tour goes quiet and the European and LPGA Tours wind up their season ending championships this week.
Normally those two tournaments would be the big story in golf, but not this week.
Tiger Woods, who usually hogs all the headlines in golf, has done so again. And not with his clubs but with his pen. 
In a surprising reversal of roles Woods has put down his clubs, taken up his pen and has become a writer.
Tiger has responded and attacked Hall of Fame golf writer Dan Jenkins for his recent parody of Woods in Golf Digest.
Tiger’s decades long refusal to ever sit down with the dean of golf writers has resulted in Jenkins taking a bit of literary license and publishing “My (Fake) Interview With Tiger.”
The so called interview came out a few weeks ago in Golf Digest and while I thought it was funny, satirical and gave Woods a few good needles it wasn’t earth shattering. I had no problem with Jenkins piece in fact I had a bigger issue with Golf Digest putting self absorbed, loser Johnny Manziel on the cover. But that’s another rant.
This is what Jenkins does. He is supremely skilled at delivering the sharpest of needles to any and all that he thinks deserves them. For years Tiger has been one of his targets as well as any other golfer that does or says something he thinks deserves it.
So when the article was published there were no screams from many in the business but now after living with it for a few weeks Team Tiger has decided to fight back and defend Tiger’s Honor.
Woods, and all his ghost writers, published his counter attack on Derek Jeter’s website, The Players’ Tribune. Funny how Woods uses his buddy Jeter’s website instead of the traditional route, again he shows his disdain for writers.
Woods calls the article a “grudge-fueled piece of character assassination.” He also says he can laugh at himself and gives plenty of time to writers, “I like to think I have a good sense of humor, and that I’m more than willing to laugh at myself. In this game, you have to. I’ve been playing golf for a long time, 20 years on the PGA Tour. I’ve given lots of interviews to journalists in all that time, more than I could count, and some have been good and some not so much.”
I find that really funny…he can laugh at himself? Really? He never showed that side to the public.
Woods and his agent even wrote to Golf Digest and demanded an explanation and a written apology. Now that’s funny.
There are so many things going on here it is comical, even if Tiger doesn’t get it.
Jenkins has been calling them as he sees them for over fifty years and he has focused his wise ass attitude on more golfers than you can count. The man is a legend and has free reign to write just about anything he likes.
His wit has taken down better men than Tiger and will continue to do so until he is looking up from the wrong side of the fairway.
This is certain: for whatever reason Jenkins has little use for Woods and he will write anything, about anyone that he thinks is worthy of his wit.
As far as Tiger and his defense, well don’t you think he brought more attention to it by lambasting Jenkins?
There was little mention of it in the media after the interview was first published. But now it is front page golf news and not just on Jeter’s website. Maybe that was part of the deal for Woods. He wanted to help out his buddy and get some traffic to Jeter’s website. It worked.
I am a Jeter fan and while I knew of his website I never went there until yesterday. I bet there are a few more clicks on The Player’s Tribune now. Jete’s owes Tiger a big thank you.
I find it strange that Woods says he can laugh at himself and reacts so violently to Jenkins piece.
Camp Tiger has been able to manipulate the media since day one. He has bullied writers, famous and not so famous alike, and has received favorable treatment and been handled with kids gloves by the majority of writers and outlets.
It was well known that anything written or said in a negative light towards Woods would result in being frozen out by Woods.
That would mean being unable to get time with the biggest name in the game. That translated into fewer readers, less clicks and fewer viewers for their organization. Few writers or media outlets were willing to take that hit. Dan Jenkins has no problem with that.
Even stranger is the fact that Tiger was on the Golf Digest payroll for years, so much for building lasting relationships.
Jenkins and Woods are both alpha males with distinctly different attitudes that probably couldn’t agree on what time of day it is.
Winners and losers here? Hmmm, I guess the big winner is Derek Jeter and his Player’s Tribune getting all that new traffic. Maybe Golf Digest gets a bunch more clicks and sells a few more issues thanks to Tiger.
Dan Jenkins gets some publicity, as if he needs some. He’s a Hall of Fame writer and if this is the first time you read anything about him you are way out of touch with golf media.
Woods comes off looking, well like Woods here. He’s defensive, unable to deal with anything he deems negative and will continue to hold a deep grudge.
His record on the course speaks for himself. Off the course is another matter and maybe that is part of Jenkins’ problem with Tiger: that Tiger rarely spoke, open and honestly, for himself.
So Jenkins takes it upon himself to supply Tiger’s answers. Sure, Jenkins took shots at Woods but it was a caricature of Woods not a character assignation. Woods has done that all by himself.
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