Hardship. I think most of us know what the word means. For me it brings to mind the Franklin Expedition or the Donner Party, those living in squalor in Third World countries, Ken Green, the suffering in Haiti, and so on. But an editorial in the March issue of GOLF MAGAZINE left me questioning the meaning. So I looked it up.

Follow up:
Sure enough, I was right. Hardship is “severe suffering or privation.”

So, can someone please tell me how this definition applies in this wording from the said editorial: “Teary withdrawals, rules controversies, confidence-killing injuries – Wie, 20, has endured more hardships than most people twice her age.”

After reading it again, I thought for sure that the author, GOLF editor David M. Clarke, had his tongue deeply embedded in his cheek. Then, when I realized he was dead serious, I thought to myself – this guy has no idea what a hardship is. If he did, he would have said something like, “Wie, 20, has had a few setbacks,” and left it at that.

Better yet, here’s what Clarke should have said, were he not yet another delusional, butt-kissing golf journalist: “Wie, 20, has enjoyed more wealth, opportunities and pampering than could ever be imagined for someone her age. Yet, for some strange reason, we continue to feel sorry for her.”

The Wie being referred to, of course, is that most tragic of figures, Michelle Wie. Or so Clarke would have us believe. So I decided to do some research, thinking I might find some reason to believe that life has indeed been tough for someone who was a multi-millionaire in her teens, long before she won anything.

Had there been a rare instance of entitlement being denied? Did Stanford make her write exams when she should have received – as always – an exemption? Did she have to clean clubs in the back shop one summer? Was she guilt-ridden over feigning a wrist injury and withdrawing from the 2005 Ginn Tribute with only two holes to go, a dreaded 88 almost a certainty? Did she feel left out because her own poor English wasn’t recognized when the LPGA’s Korean players were knocked for theirs?

From what I could gather, Michelle Wie has never experienced severe suffering or been deprived of anything. Sure there’ve been setbacks, but more often than not they’ve been of her own volition. The only “hardship” was a wrist injury that was apparently even more catastrophic than what Tiger endured when he lost that leg in Iraq.

The magazine further confirms its infatuation with Wie in an absolutely bizarre interview that appears in the same issue. I say bizarre because Wie, never the most articulate 20-year-old, gives, in her typically robotic, Valley Girl style, one strange answer after another. She even invokes selective amnesia when asked a question about the 2007 U.S. Women’s Open, saying, among other things, that she couldn’t even remember where it was played. At this point the obviously smitten interviewer should have pulled the plug but instead continued to caudle his rattled subject.

Call it the Tiger Woods effect or Golf Channel syndrome; I’ll never understand the rather creepy obsession that the Clarkes and the Rich Lerners of the world have with some of these players, particularly Wie and Woods. In their eyes, these players can do no wrong, on the course or off of it.

Just once I’d like to see so-called journalists of this ilk drop the pompoms, forget about offending advertisers, and simply tell it like it is. Isn’t that what an objective journalist is supposed to do?

But this is the same school of golf writers who continue to find something endearing about the surly Sergio Garcia. This spoiled brat has done absolutely nothing to earn our admiration, yet many golf writers, like Golf Channel blowhard John Hawkins, yearn for the day when this loutish Spaniard wins a major. He’s so deserving, say the suckers, yet the only thing Garcia deserves is the same contempt he shows for fans.

Is there any hope? Doubtful. Case in point: The Second Coming of Tiger Woods.

On Friday, February 19, 2010, at 11 a.m. ET, the world stopped. The Horny One was about to give his State of the Undoing Address. There he was, with his mommy, looking as stylishly forlorn as disgraced celebrities always do when their ready to deliver their carefully scripted and well-rehearsed tearjerker at a press conference. A cleverly timed one, too, given that it was the same week that one of his former sponsors, accenture, was sponsoring a World Golf Championship event.

In front of a chosen few, including friends and media and industry lackeys, he delivered a vacuous, 13-minute apology rife with hollow pledges and tiresome platitudes like, “I stopped living by the core values that I was taught to believe in.” It was so predictable that I thought we might see a fist pump; so lame that I hope he waived his appearance fee.

Unfortunately, if there’s indeed a sucker born every minute, you can bet there were at least 13 more after Woods did his best Jimmy Swaggart.

If this soul-baring moment was good for Woods, it was absolutely therapeutic for the millions of zealots who’ve been waiting for their messiah to tell them something, anything. Some, no doubt, will be comparing it to King’s “I Had a Dream” speech.

Even better news is that their beloved Tiger will be back, likely sooner than later, and probably at the Masters. And he’ll again be living by the core values he believes in – greed, arrogance, winning at all costs, and convincing himself that he is bigger than the game.

His pathological obsession with winning 19 majors will be greater than ever, and, as always, take priority over anything else in his life. Should he fail to reach that number, he will consider his life to have been a miserable failure.

When he does return, the same toady journalists will be stepping over one another to cheer him on. Life as we once knew it on the PGA Tour will finally be back to normal. Same old Tiger, same old also-rans cashing in on him, same old re-runs on Golf Channel.

Which will be too bad, really, because I think golf is doing just fine without him. It would certainly survive without him, just as pop music survived after the Beatles broke up, as hockey survived after Bobby Orr retired, and so on.

Besides, despite being a great player, Tiger’s act has become stale and tiring, and annoyingly predictable. Because we have to share his every breath, we know exactly when the fist pump is coming, when the lower lip will be dragging, and when the expletives will fill the air. Throw in the club tossing and contempt for the fans, and you start to wonder why he’s considered indispensable.

He’s not much of an actor, either, though he certainly does work at it. Watch him as he stalks a routine three-footer from every possible angle. The drama builds to a crescendo, and when he finally knocks it in, the crowd goes even more crazy than usual because they think the putt must have been a lot tougher than it looked.

His best performance, of course, was the U.S. Open he won when he apparently didn’t have a leg to stand on. The leg seemed fine when he hit a good shot. When it was a wayward one, the painful look and limp were inevitable. The show was worthy of an Oscar as the most famous knee injury of all time brought fans to tears and writers to forget what courage really means.

See you at the Masters, Tiger. In the meantime we’ll continue to enjoy this rare opportunity to watch other players for a change.

And if anyone’s happened to notice, there are many fine ones. If you’re too busy mourning Tiger’s absence and haven’t seen the likes of Rory McIlroy, Thongchai Jaidee, Martin Kaymer, or Ian Poulter, you’re missing many good reasons why golf doesn’t need Tiger.

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