The mind wanders as you get into your elder years. I barely recall the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Follow up:

I think there was a bombing and a great opening ceremony with Muhammad Ali, but that’s about it.

Except a Nike ad that ran at the Games.

It went something like this: “Silver is what they give to the first loser.”

Then again, it might have gone something like this: “You don’t win silver, you lose gold.”

The point is, the emboldened Nike ad emphasized winning at all costs.

It wasn’t good enough to compete and finished second or third or 23^rd.

Just win baby.

Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

Winning isn’t for the faint of heart, either.

We’re talking alpha male stuff here.

Win and you get the glamour, glory and big bucks.

Win and you’re been the new winged God of Greek mythology come back to life – in keeping with the Nike logo’s intent.

The ad came to mind recently as I watched Tiger Woods, the winged warrior of the golfing world stand before an international audience of millions and read some cleverly contrived copy about how he was sorry about his sexual misdeeds with women who were not his wife and how he was a new man (thanks to all the counselling) and maybe some day he will return to the PGA Tour a cleansed champion who had now washed away all sin – the statue restored to it’s rightful place after someone (probably the hated media) had painted a moustache on it.

You can breathe now after my run-on sentence, and so too can Tiger – now that he has stemmed the tide of frenzied banter about his many character flaws.

This, of course, was the purpose behind the speech: to re-do the Tiger image. To re-claim his position as top pitchman for the advertisers that have hung with him.

Hey, after doing a Howard Hughes for nearly 50 days, he clipped his nails, combed his hair, brushed his teeth, put on a new blue shirt, and re-emerged – taking one for the team – Tiger Inc.

He decided now was the time – in the middle of the Accenture (former endorser) Match Play Championship – to elicit a little sympathy as a victim of an overzealous and unethical press, and, oh yes, his own over-the-top excesses.

The speech, about three times longer than Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was his awkward attempt to apologize to his wife, his kids, his mother, his friends, his sponsors, his tour playing mates, his fan club, his foundation, his dog and cat, his pharmacist, and Raoul, the guy that cleans his yacht.

I have made a terrible mistake and this indiscreet behaviour was very unTigerlike, he said.

Hell, he added (okay he never swore – he saves that for the golf course), I have drifted away from my Buddhist beliefs that teach all of to be thoughtful and serene and connected to our fellow man.

Tiger, looking stoned or zombie like, read haltingly from a script that was created for him by some PR flak named Bob.

It was as if he was a Grade 4 student delivering an essay in front of his classmates for the first time. It was stilted and punctuated by awkward pauses and it was made all but laughable when he stopped and raised his hand to his heart to emphasis something about the fact that he was really really really sorry and he’d be really really good in the future.

“I have made you question who I am and how I could have done the things I did,” said a declawed Tiger.

His delivery gave off all the warmth of a Death Star.

This bizarre speech was boycotted by the Golf Writers Association of America, who must have received an advanced copy of the text, which contained nothing of substance, and after which, seemed to sum how many now feel about Woods.

This former Paul Bunyan of the fairways has been reduced in the eyes of many who thought him flawless and even invincible.

Tiger being Tiger, he didn’t give any titillating details about his layovers with half the cocktail waitress south of the 49^th, or his lively limbo sessions with porn stars. But who can blame the guy? His mother was there watching. Twisting in her seat. Looking down for most of it.

Even during his glory years, the guy kept any thoughts about Obama’s election, the current state of the economy, or the problems in Afghanistan, carefully sealed.

No one knew the real Tiger.

And that’s how he liked it.

No wonder.

He was the calm duck floating along the surface of success, while below the water his feet (or another body part) were paddling at breakneck speed.

I shouldn’t mock the fact his mother was there.

It certainly added to this theatre of the absurd.

When he hugged her afterwards, and then glad handed it with his privileged few, the moving moment seemed to be an epilogue to a badly performed one-act play.

Of course we remember Tiger’s first appearance in front of the adoring public. There was this cute little 2-year-old cub on the Mike Douglas Show. The audience went wild as he hit shot after perfect shot on stage as Bob Hope and others looked on in amazement.

Yet, strangely enough, there was no childhood joy in little Tiger’s face then, and there wasn’t any as he delivered his deathly dirge at the so-called press conference in Florida.

I say it was a so-called press conference because there was really nothing to press him about since he had left strict instructions that he wasn’t taking any questions.

There was another Tiger direction: only one camera, aimed straight at him.

Even this didn’t work out for golf’s No. 1.

The first camera quit, making them switch to a side camera.

Unwittingly, this seemed to catch him in another light. Exposing him further. All control was now gone. The other Tiger was there for all to see.

The problem for Tiger is that he truly believes that winning is everything – the credo of the Atlanta Games.

His life would be measured by tournament victories and major titles.

He was hell bent on beating Jack Nicklaus’ golden standard and proclaiming himself as the best there ever was.

But Tiger didn’t just win tournaments.

He obliterated opponents. Humbled them. Made them quiver.

He was the great intimidator.

If an opponent slighted him even mildly, Tiger would have his revenge.

When Canadian Stephen Ames was taking on Tiger in the Match Play Championship a few years back, he had the audacity to tell the press that he thought his opponent was hitting some wayward drives in recent rounds.

This faint criticism was true, but it got Tiger in a lather. He waxed Ames 9&8 in the match, and showed his disdain for his opponent with a few stabbing remarks afterwards.

First the win, then the fist pump – into the gut of his opponent.

Those who liked his audacity were smitten.

Those who didn’t said nothing – but filed it away for future reference.

I wonder what those great gentlemen of the game might have thought, the ones who won and lost with grace and style – Nicklaus, Palmer, Trevino, Watson, and Crenshaw?

Tiger was so good we created a hologram image of him.

We now know how superficial this all was.

The irony, of course, is this: while winning everything, he lost his name, perhaps his marriage, and mega millions in endorsement deals.

You see, in the world of business, it’s not just about winning, it’s about image.

Tiger was clean – squeaky.

His smile was white – pearly.

His body was hard – to-die-for.

His victories on tour were tour de forces, and punctuated with a fist-pumping exclamation mark. The guy was telegenic.

Ratings soared 50 per cent when he was in the field.

Advertisers fell over themselves to spill money at his feet.

Take Charlie Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest and gave it a sporting twist.

That was Tiger – the evolution of the golfer, taken to the nth degree.

In the ad world, winning is pure gold.

Want to add some black ink to XYZ Inc.’s bank balance?

Just hire Tiger Inc.

Tiger became the great pitchman for the products that only the rich could afford.

Big Buicks. Big diamond encrusted watches.

That made him as famous as his wins at Augusta.

He took on icon status, and was lifted to a higher high – like his buddy Michael Jordan, the other great sportsman/hustler who had his own line of shoes.

Tiger was destined to be the first billion-dollar athlete.

Even cocktail waitresses, who didn’t know a slice from a hook, could see Tiger on the tube pitching Buicks.

Did he use those celebrity-seeking women to quench his sexual thirst? Or did they use him to quench their desire to feel the thrust of a winged God?

Who knows? Who cares? It didn’t matter. It wasn’t about love or anything like that. It was about power. The alpha male vs. the hapless groupie. He felt he “deserved to enjoy the temptations” and the gals got bragging rights with their buds for a day or two.

Some even kept his sensual warbling on their cellphone or email – just in case.

Late last year, Tiger Inc. was never so powerful or so vulnerable.

The tabloids were on to him. So was his wife. Those email missives and cell phone messages were like kryptonite to golf’s Superman.

Wife Elin did the Highland fling when she heard them. It was thought that she took it out on Tiger’s face, then his Eldorado.

The walls of Tiger Inc. were crumbling.

Win at all costs was the Eldrick Woods mantra, passed down by his father Earl, the ex-marine. He found out early that he had a Tiger by the tail. Tiger will be bigger than Nicklaus and more influential than Gandhi, he said.

People either rolled their eyes or believed him.

With his manufactured swing and his manufactured life and his manufactured personality, he could be the best there ever was.

And Tiger wanted it all: the trophy wife, the trophy kids, and the trophy yacht.

He had a certain aura about him. If he kept himself to himself, no one would ever know the real Tiger.

It was all about privacy. That’s what he called his boat; and that’s why he kept the public at arm’s length.

He was entitled to it all of this because he’d worked so hard for it.

He’d hit a million golf balls and sweated it out in the gym and got himself into a different head space on the course that any of his opponents.

Tiger never choked. Never.

It shook his opponents. They melted before him when the heat was on.

He took scalps, too: Mickelson, Els, Garcia, Weir.

If he was petulant on the course and used curse words and dissed some kid looking for a simple autograph, it was explainable: he was Tiger; he was The Chosen One.

He’s cut from a different cloth, said the fawning golf writers building up the beast.

He’s delightfully different, said the golf commentators on The Golf Channel.

Different is good.

Different is demanding, which only adds to the aura.

Different wins golf tournaments and sells product.

Well, we’ve learned that he wasn’t different, or perfect.

He was the spoiled brat with all the toys who didn’t have to share them with anyone else because he owned his own playground.

In the Tiger playground, you set your own rules.

Did money and fame knock the common sense out of him, or did he have any in the first place?

Was he just a socially inept golfing cyborg who was cloistered from the real world by all the money and fame?

Did Tiger believe the world was his oyster and he was the pearl created inside it?

In Tiger’s world, you don’t follow the rules; you make them.

You don’t act like others because you aren’t like the others.

As one camera failed and the director had to switch to a side view, we saw a side of Tiger he didn’t want us to see.

It’s the side he’s kept hidden all these years.

It’s the side filled with flaws.

Perhaps the sycophants that oohed and aahed his every movement over the past decade, shouldn’t have told him to show this side earlier?

They should have told him to treat the kids with compassion when they asked for an autograph.

They should have told him to treat the game with respect when he’d cuss and swear after hitting a misdirected drive.

They should have told him to put a lid on that big lug of a caddy, Steve Williams, every time he attacked a fan with a camera.

They should have told him to watch himself around the cocktail waitresses who had everything to gain from those layover sessions.

They should have told him that there might be hell to pay at home if and when his wife found out.

They should have told him that Jack Nicklaus didn’t care about creating a major championship record and instead, spent most of his time raising his large family, and honouring his father’s name.

They should have told him that silver is okay once in a while.

So is third. Maybe even a 23^rd.

Now he’s telling the world that he finally gets it.

He’s going back to the real Tiger – the follower of Buddhism, the good guy from Stanford, the humble and wingless warrior.

Yet, as I watch him speak, the words don’t connect to anything – like a heart.

It’s a cyborg speaking.

It’s something that’s been manufactured in a testing lab and worked and reworked until it has been drained off all meaning.

I can’t help thinking that the guy delivering the words still doesn’t get it.

He’d never settle for silver.

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