Golf Clubs On Us

I was out for breakfast on a Sunday, reading the sports page, which mentioned that a kid named Tiger was doing well at the Masters, and the server commented “How about that Tiger Woods?” I was literally at a loss for words. He is very good at golf, but his excellence has always been clinical—easy not to watch.

His recent troubles seemed painful on a domestic level, but hardly worthy of the attention they commanded. I am even tired of people saying they are tired of Tiger Woods.

I’ve also never had much interest in Nike as a brand. I avoid buying their shoes because of their association with sweatshop labor, but buy other shoes produced, no doubt, under similar circumstances. It’s the lazy hypocritical morality of someone who avoids shopping at Wal-Mart, and goes to Target instead.

But this commercial. Tiger’s return to golf, and the simultaneous debut of this commercial, seems to put a period to this crisis for Tiger. As Tiger’s dead father asks, “have you learned anything”? Maybe so, but it’s nothing nice. There are (at least) three levels that the ad works on: literal, pop cultural, and personal.

This act of contrition raises the question of what, exactly, Tiger owes Nike for their loyalty. He lost his other sponsors when he was caught in behavior remarkably similar to that which gained endorsement opportunities for Joe Namath. It does not seem to be a question of changing mores – much more recently, Tom Brady and Matthew Leinart have been caught in extramarital sexual relations with little damage to their public image. Tiger’s philandering, instead, was pathologized as “sex addiction.” I am not sure why. His race is a necessary part of the explanation, but I am not confident that it is sufficient.

In a broader popular cultural arena, it’s hard to imagine an advertisement that will do more to perpetuate Tiger’s humiliation through endless parody. It is Nike’s gift to the meme economy. Between when I write this and whenever someone reads this, the number of parodies will have exploded further, so I won’t bother quantifying. The static image and the off-camera voice puts a parody within the reach of anyone who owns a computer. The people who do Nike’s commercials are well aware of the media landscape the ad inhabits, and it’s impossible to imagine that they are not counting on these parodies to proliferate their message.

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