Grrrrrrrrrrrr

The Bible says: You've ruined your own life, Israel -- but don't drag Judah down with you! Don't go to the sex shrine at Gilgal, don't go to that sin city Bethel, Don't go around saying 'God bless you' and not mean it, taking God's name in vain. Israel is as stubborn as a mule. How can God lead him like a lamb to open pasture? Ephraim is addicted to idols. Let him go. When the beer runs out, it's sex, sex and more sex. Bold and sordid debauchery -- how they love it! The whirlwind has them in clutches. Their sex-worship leaves them finally impotent.

I find it incredibly difficult to imagine that no one on the PGA Tour noticed or knew tht Tiger Woods was addicted, apparently, to sex. I find it difficult to imagine that Tiger Woods did all that he apparently did, completely without anyone noticing the wealth (what a great word to insert here) of young women hanging around him.

What I imagine is this: No one cared enough to say, "Tiger, maybe this isn't such a great idea."

I wrote this column a few months ago when I was a golf writer for the local newspaper. I reprint it because I wrote it. What I want you to do, again if there are readers, is substitute Tiger Woods for John Daly and substitute sex for alcohol:

Maybe you missed the saddest story at the Masters last week, and it wasn't Kenny Perry's back-to-back bogeys on 17 and 18 that essentially opened the door for Angel Cabrera's victory.

Missing this story was easy to do. I, however, couldn't help but notice.




Darron Cummings / The Associated PressGolfer John Daly is on suspension from the PGA.
I will not argue that there are sadder stories on the PGA Tour, stories of fathers and wives with terminal illnesses. Though John Daly has what could be a terminal illness, he doesn't get that there is one cure and one cure alone. He doesn't get it, and I suspect he won't. Last week Daly sold memorabilia and merchandise in a parking lot across the street from Augusta National Golf Club. While others were suffering the course, Daly was suffering what he had and has done to himself.

When the Zurich Classic of New Orleans begins next week, Daly won't be here because his illness has threatened his career (he's on suspension from the PGA Tour) and his life, which seems like a country song gone amok.

Just a week ago, Daly said, "I always talk about the things in my life that have happened because it might help somebody. We all make mistakes. Hell, everybody knows that. But most people are too embarrassed or too scared to admit them. I'm not; it's part of life."

There was a time when Daly's golf talent (he has won two major championships), especially the long drives he became so famous for, overcame his lack of discipline. He made stops in New Orleans, like last year when he missed the cut by six strokes, and the crowds watching him were as large as those for much bigger names and even bigger talents.

Since he broke through in 1991 with an improbable victory in the PGA Championship, Daly has been a crowd pleaser and attention-getter, both for his play and for his off-the-course foibles. Four marriages, an addiction to alcohol, nicotine, gambling and who knows what else. Two trips to alcohol rehab, gambling losses that would cripple most of us with fear and on and on, including charges against an ex-wife that she attacked him with a knife.

But all that finally got to be too much. For the first time in 17 years, he has no sponsor. He is near the end of his six-month suspension, but I'm afraid he still doesn't get it.

He has lost 40-plus pounds, undergoing "Lap-Band" surgery. He's on a high-protein diet, but he still is sipping beers and talking about how "it doesn't taste right, " as if that was a success. I wager that someone, somewhere has mentioned that quitting drinking doesn't mean sipping.

Daly, perhaps one day, will understand that to get beyond this, he has to completely surrender to the idea that his ability to swing a golf club has only gotten him into the situation he is in. It will not get him out of that situation. It never can. It never does. Surrender means a complete change in lifestyle. Surrender means understanding you are not in control and welcoming that.

All those millions of dollars he made on the tour are about gone. He is near bankruptcy, which is why he was selling hats, T-shirts, towels and golf flags outside the gates of Augusta.

Daly told The Associated Press, "You're always embarrassed a little bit, but you know, you take it in stride and go on and say, 'Hey, everybody makes mistakes.' "

Again, he doesn't get it.

The road to his recovery won't go through stomach surgery, but in admitting more than a few mistakes. When Daly finally says to himself and the world, "I'm so flawed I can't help myself, " then and only then will he return to the tour that made him a public name. I don't mean the PGA Tour won't let him back; I'm saying he won't be back fully no matter what the powers that be allow.

Until then, he's just serving his time.

And selling somebody a hat or a towel.

Sad?

You bet.

Because he could still be so much more than the guy who can't control his own actions. Who among us can? It's not about getting his game back. It's not even about getting his life back. It's about getting the life he never had.

The column ends there.


There is no difference in addictions, only in the way the addictions are perceived. I'm sure someone somewhere, including Tiger's caddie, knew all that was going on. But because Tiger is the wealthiest, most powerful, best golfer in the world, no one said anything.

The Bible says we are called to do more than watch. We are called to speak out. If Israel (Daly) has ruined its own life, there is no need to stand by and let Judah (Woods) be dragged down with him.

We somehow think that sex addiction is less of a problem than is alcohol addicition, or the worst of them all (in our minds) drug addiction. WRONG. They're all things that keep us from worshipping God, which in my heart and mind is the very definition of addiction, tht which keeps us from God.

What Woods needed was a Nathan to David, someone who would say, STOP what you're doing. You're ruining a marriage, a life, several lives. STOP what you're doing, you're going to ruin the perfect lives of two beautiful kids. STOP what you're doing, you're going to completely destroy an image that somehow was built over time to be a perfect one.

STOP.

The Bible says in Hosea 5 (the Message): Bloated by arrogance, big as a house, they're a public disgrace...

The reason Tiger Woods is walking away from golf is that no one would trust him to leave home and simply play golf. No one could trust him to tell the truth. No one could trust him to do the right thing.

Walking away from golf temporarily won't cure that malady, won't solve that addiction, won't wash him clean.

This he needs to learn, and I for one don't think he has. Until there is a Nathan, he won't.