Hang in there, Tiger

By Chuck Finley

ANAHEIM- Here we go again. Last week, Tiger Woods became perhaps the highest profile male victim of domestic violence in American history, and the pain he must feel is inestimable. Due to the stigma of male domestic violence, the only thing more bruised and swollen than Tiger’s face is his pride, and the Asian part of him must be suffering even more from such shame. As a male domestic violence survivor and former professional athlete myself, I can commiserate with his pain. But I’m here to tell Tiger to stay strong, because there is life for a man after being the victim of domestic violence. I call myself a survivor instead of a victim because it shows that I am strong, I am independent, and I deserve to live my life free from physical abuse from women, just like any other man.

It seems like just yesterday that Rihanna was on the business end of Chris Brown’s fists of fury, but does our society learn anything? Of course it doesn’t. It chooses to continue to ignore the problem of domestic violence, especially against men. Every year, 835,000 American men are victims of domestic violence. That’s almost 40% of the domestic violence that takes place in our country every year. Yet society still blames the victim by insinuating the male domestic violence survivors are somehow lesser men than those who don’t get beat up by women. I am here to tell Tiger that his future is still bright. Now, he has to start from scratch and learn to live again, to laugh again, and to love again.

[RIGHT- That two-timing, backstabbing tramp, my ex-wife. God I miss her.]

Before I move on, I should point out that I don’t know how trustworthy those domestic violence statistics are. They report that 40% of the victims of domestic violence are men, but that includes gay and straight men. Of the gay men, there is no telling what percentage of them are the bottoms in the relationship, which is really more like beating a woman than it is like beating a man if you think about the power dynamics of the situation. Of course, it’s possible that some of the gay victims of domestic violence are tops who were beaten by their more effeminate partners, much like me and Tiger. And that’s not even getting into the discussion of how we classify domestic violence against hermaphrodites, lady boys, transsexuals, or people with Klinefelter’s XXY Syndrome. All I mean is that you should take those statistics with a grain of salt.

The next thing Tiger should do is to go to a drug store and pick up some makeup so people stop asking him how he got the cuts and bruises on his face; it’s not going to help anything to continually revisit that pain. You may be thinking to yourself that a guy who was beaten up by a woman does not need any more feminine habits and should steer clear of makeup, but I have a good reason. I was married to a model for six years, and we have two daughters named Wynter and Raine, so it would be hard for me not to know a thing or two about makeup. Anyway, he should start with some foundation, then cover it up with some concealer. I was able to match my natural skin tone with Sephora’s Sun-Dappled Sand, but I understand that Tiger will have a harder time as he has a very unconventional skin tone. He might want to try the Smoky Mahogany, which is intended for people who are ½ black, ¼ Asian, 1/16 Caucasian, 1/16 Albanian, 1/16 Llama, and 1/16 robot, so it should be a perfect match. After that, top it off with Bare Escentuals bareMineral Tasking Face Powder to give it a natural look, and you will be as good as normal. See, Tawny, I was listening all that time. You didn’t have to beat me! We can still make this work! Why!!!

Deep breaths, deep breaths. You’re worth it. You are a winner. I’m sorry, sometimes I need to remember my mantras because I lapse into battered husband syndrome. I’ll be alright.

The next thing for Tiger to do is to get his career back on track. It is much easier to move on from a tragedy when you have something else on your mind, and there could be no more therapeutic activity for him than getting back on the golf course. It will not be easy to get back to his previous level of success; I went 4-11 for the Indians after I was beaten by my ex-wife, so he has to understand that there will be a time for adjustment. If he expects to come back at 100%, he could experience a crisis of confidence and really struggle. To keep his confidence up, he should compare himself to David Duval, another #1 ranked golfer. No matter how bad things get for Tiger, they won’t be as bad as they were for Duval. He could have a seizure on the course and probably still shoot better than Duval. As long as he stays focused, he should be able to get back to his previous level of success, but he will have to deal with distractions along the way. The White Sox played Whitesnake songs when I pitched to remind me that Tawny was in their music videos, so Tiger can expect to hear Abba music, see Swedish Chef impersonators in the gallery, be conveniently paired with Henrik Stenson by a smart ass tournament organizer, and have Swedish meatballs thrown at him by crazed Phil Mickelson fans.

That reminds me, when is our nation going to say enough is enough to these insane, overly aggressive Scandanavians? First, it was Dolph Lundgren murdering Apollo Creed in Rocky IV, taking steroids, and never facing any punishment for it other than Rocky’s fists of justice. Now, a golf club wielding nanny runs amok in the rich part of Florida and everybody shrugs it off like it happened in the meth-infested backwater part of Florida slightly further north. I’d go so far as to say that Elin was probably on steroids, too. It’s part of their culture over there. It is time to take a stand before these war-mongering monsters to infest our gene pool with their tall, beautiful, athletic genes.

Nonetheless, Tiger did the right thing by pretending that he did not get beat up. When it came out that my wife beat me with a shoe, it prompted a never-ending stream of ridicule. When my daughter took me to school for show and tell, none of the kids asked me about how many batters I struck out or what it was like to play in the All-Star Game. Instead, all I heard was “pussy” this and “girly-man” that. All the boys in the class kept asking the teacher if they could borrow her high heel to try to beat me with it. Luckily, she had the good sense to say no, but it didn’t help that her alternative to letting them hurt me was to encourage them to kick me where my balls used to be instead.

It must be even worse for Tiger, because he was beaten with the tool with which he earns his money. He can never get away from a golf club, and that makes the cut that much deeper. Tiger getting hit with a golf club is like me getting beaten with a baseball bat, Richie Sambora getting beaten with a guitar, or Milton Berle getting beaten with his giant cock. Actually, I heard that type of story about Uncle Milty at Brando’s house from the 70s that included Cheryl Ladd, a startled house cat, and a hot bucket of cheese fondue that resulted in permanent disfigurement for all parties. At least Tiger doesn’t have to live with that nightmare.

If I could leave Tiger with one piece of advice it would be this: remember that things will never get worse than they are right now. Everyone knows that despite your stature, your athletic ability, and your bulging muscles, you got your ass kicked by a woman. At every point from now on, you can look at whatever problem you’re facing and say to yourself, “hey, at least I’m not getting beat up by a girl.” It might not sound like much, but for male victims of domestic violence, it’s all we have.