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 If I were to cheat on my spouse, I would feel an immense sense of guilt, causing me to apologize relentlessly to the family and friends I have hurt.
Tiger Woods has family and friends to apologize to, as well as several corporate sponsors, a world full of fans, and three mistresses.
Evidently he felt it was finally time to come out from under his rock to publicly apologize for his affair, which has deterred him from playing golf, representing brands like Nike, Gillette, Gatorade, Pepsi, and being the upstanding husband and father he signed up to be.
It would be awful to be at your most vulnerable state while the whole world is watching and judging you. However, once again, Woods signed up to be a world figure, which means he has to accept judgment day is every day, especially when he does something scandalous.
While I definitely think Woods is completely in the wrong for cheating on his wife multiple times and obviously lying about it to everyone, I do think it’s really unfortunate he has millions of eyes and ears watching and listening all the time.
As disappointed as a lot of people are over what Woods did, I think people secretly enjoy it because it makes them feel better about mistakes they make on a day-to-day basis.
Watching the golden boy of sports and commercialism fall off the high, immortal pedestal we put him on ourselves reassures people of everyone’s mortal state, as people who make mistakes over and over again.
 The only difference between the Tiger Woods of the world and the rest of us is we do not have the whole world holding their breath to see if we will maintain the perfect facade we idealistically see as expected.
It would be easy to say the failure in this scenario is Woods for his obvious wrongdoings, but unfortunately for him, his intimate relations with his mistresses earned more than 15 minutes of failure.
The unseen failure for most people to see is the world’s inability to be consistent with who they deem as sincere or insincere in their apology to the public.
For instance, when David Letterman admitted to sleeping with women who work for him back in October, everyone just let it go after a few weeks.
But Tiger Woods, the beloved golfer, public figure and philanthropist, does not get the benefit of the doubt regarding the sincerity of his public apology, in addition to the fact people are not going to forget about his discrepancies.
Maybe I’m not giving people enough credit; maybe they have higher standards for someone like Woods because he is such a highly regarded athlete and public figure, whereas someone like Letterman is just expected to mess up, and ironically, make fun of people who screw up their lives.
It’s like in high school when your parents would tell you how disappointed they are in you, which for those of us with a conscience and possibly a heart, made us feel absolutely terrible.
Woods probably feels awful for disappointing the millions of fans, corporate sponsors and his beloved family. We have to remember he is a human, not a golf and advertising god.
Woods has definitely done a world of damage, but the world has done 15 minutes of damage.
We are incapable of seeing everyone as mortals, who, regardless of whether they are a funny comedian or esteemed public figure, should all be treated the same way after they fall from grace.
Column: JULIANNE OLSON, Intern News Reporter
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