Nike’s bold new Tiger Woods ad, which features the golfer staring into the camera while the voice of his deceased father asks him “if he learned anything,” nearly overshadowed the first round of the Masters Tournament. After shooting 4-under par, Woods, who’s been reluctant to publicly address his personal scandal, was asked during his post-round press conference why he allowed his private life to be the centerpiece of a commercial. Scroll to the 21-second mark:
Whether the ad is effective or not is up for debate (64 percent of EW.com voters think it failed to boost Woods’ image), but it certainly struck a nerve. Woods thought it was “very apropos,” going on to say that “any son who has lost a father, and who meant so much in their life, I think they would understand the spot.”
Woods’ fathers’ words echo just as loudly in S.L.Price’s superb profile of Woods in this week’s Sports Illustrated. The writer quotes the elder Woods as saying: “Tiger gets physically ill when he’s not telling the truth. He can’t sleep, can’t eat, his whole body chemistry is upset. I told him: In order for your life to work, you must come from truth–at inner core. One of his pillars of strength is his integrity.”
I’m guessing Nike didn’t ask Price for his audio transcript of that decade-old conversation to use for their clever commercial.
Who cares? I’d rather find out his comments about the “bootyism” banner that flew overhead during the Masters the other day.
used 2 be a big fan, i could care less about his ex-gfs but pimping your dead father image .. is 2 much. dude, tell nike 2 stop and just concentrate on golf.
I agree – I think this is in shockingly bad taste.
I agree, too. Very opportunistic.
He might not be the best husband
but he is THE BEST GOLFER EVER TO
HIT THE CIRCUT – Who gives the public
the right to judge every move he makes – it is not our business -
Golf is our business – Leave the Poor
Guy alone and let him win.
We can judge all we want when he uses the voice of his dead father in a commercial.
So you don’t care what kind of human being he is as long as he can hit a golf ball? So, Charles Manson would be an ok guy if could hit a ball of a tee or maybe be able to hit homeruns.
Exactly, which is why OJ is still considered a stellar human being
It became our business when he used his “squeaky clean” image to see us products. Using his dead father to sell products and to recoup his image is in poor taste.
Oops, should have been “sell us products”. I need to proofread.
In the clip, Tiger seems more relaxed and open than I’ve ever seen him. I find this interesting in light of the quote from his dad about Tiger’s “whole body chemistry” being upset when he’s lying. Maybe it will prove a tremendous relief to him for all this to be out in the open, and he can just get out there and play great golf.
“Tiger Woods,” the hard-working family man, is a fictional character, no more real than Superman or Batman. Eldrick Woods, the actor who has portrayed “Tiger” all these years, is a man who plays an impressive game of golf, likes to have sex with porn stars, and is willing to sell his dead father to put more money in his bank account. If “Tiger” looks relaxed to you, it is because Eldrick Woods is a very talented actor. Don’t feel bad. You’re hardly the only person he has managed to fool over years. The question is: Are you going to let him fool you again?
Does anybody know the origin of the original quote from Earl Woods?
It’s from a DVD collection about Tiger but the quote has nothing to do with Tiger. His father wasn’t talking about him or to him, they spliced Tiger in for the commercial.
Earl Woods has 3 other kids from his first marriage. He had little to do with them after his divorce from their mother, probably because they couldn’t make him rich. He actually described siring them as a “trial run” for raising Tiger. What a guy!
Thank you!
I can’t believe there are still suckers out there buying into his crap still.
I have decided after this bizzare and disrespectful Nike ad that Nike and Tiger Woods are idiots and I will not purchase anything from Nike nor anything sponsored by Woods again-His stories just get worse.
How utterly crass! One would wonder what his mother or half siblings think of using his father this way? Stay class, Eldrick!
You know what, this is no ones business but his and his wife’s. How his wife takes him back, I don’t know, trust is forever destroyed. Athletes are human beings, they compete against the best in the world and they are given diety status by the media, they WILL make mistakes and the media will constantly look for dirt. They are not and should not be roll models for ethics and morals, parents should be roll models. Athletes can be roll models for work ethic and determination only. When you have a President of the US (Clinton) serial cheating, lying about it and debating what the definition of sex is morals and ethics are damaged and because his wife didnt throw him to the curb, no one learns. Tigers wife needs to move on for herself, only then will Tiger learn. His blaming Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley is a joke. He screwed up. My clothes would have been on the front lawn and my wife would have divorced me. What has his wife taught women of the world by keeping him?
The man is clueless. What his father may mean to him should have nothing to do with him reestablishing that he’s a “good investment” – his own words – for advertisers. He continues to drag himself down.