Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren appeared in Bay County Circuit Court in Panama City, Fla today to officially end their five-year marriage. Terms of the divorce were not disclosed but Elin is expected to clear $100 million in assets.
The couple released a statement via Elin’s Virginia-based attorney:

“We are sad that our marriage is over and we wish each other the very best for the future.”

“While we are no longer married, we are the parents of two wonderful children and their happiness has been, and will always be, of paramount importance to both of us.”

“Once we came to the decision that our marriage was at an end, the primary focus of our amicable discussions has been to ensure their future well-being. The weeks and months ahead will not be easy for them as we adjust to a new family situation, which is why our privacy must be a principal concern.”

It sucks for the Woods family, especially the children, but it’s better sooner than later. Now Tiger can focus a little more on golf and Elin is free to spend her hard earned money however she pleases.

Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren’s Divorce Is Final [People]

If you only paid attention to major sports outlets, you might think Tiger Woods was a 65-year-old has been with nothing left in his tank. A legend stripped of his talent who squandered away his greatness in just one unfortunate summer.

But then again, if you listened to Chicken Little, you might also think the sky was falling every time something fell off a tree.

Tiger’s failure to win on the PGA Tour since his return after a very public set of marital chaos and infidelity has grown from what should be an expected difficulty to a series of overblown judgments.

Little by little columns and reports have surfaced saying Tiger’s lost it, that he no longer has the mental capacity to overcome his personal problems and much more. Honestly, it’s all a bunch of nonsense.

Sure Tiger hasn’t looked anything at all like the Champ every one is used to seeing. He’s always been known for dominating the game and being far ahead of the rest of his PGA tour mates. He’s an assassin that capitalizes on other golfer’s weaknesses and wins, wins, wins.

Except this year, which has seen him be the total opposite of his usual traits during nearly every tournament he’s played in. The thing is, it shouldn’t be a surprise at all.

The man just had the image he meticulously created and perfected through his career ravaged. He was exposed as a serial cheater with an apparent lust for porn stars and steamy text messages. After years of taking over and ruthlessly dominating a sport that had never seen a Black man excel (let alone be welcomed in many courses across the country), there were plenty of Tiger detractors ready to pounce on him.

Let me be clear, not all the people who dislike Tiger or are enjoying his fall from grace harbor racist feelings, but you’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t think there weren’t quite a few who felt that way.

Either way, whether the fuel for these imaginary mountain-sized mole hills is racism, haters or just media sensationalism, it’s ridiculous.

Yes he just shot one of the worst scores of his entire career by finishing at 18 over par . He’s in danger of losing his number one ranking for the first time in what seems like 100 years and he might not make the cut for the U.S. Ryder Cup. All the while the PGA is seeing ratings and earnings suffer.

Times are tough for Tiger, but at the end of the day he’s human just like everyone else. Just because he’s amazing with a set of golf clubs doesn’t mean he isn’t affected by overwhelming personal turmoil or that he’s invincible.

Get off the man’s back, because when this difficult period of his life finally passes, chances are Tiger will be back to kicking ass and taking names. His divorce will probably happen, the media will find a new target to build up, deify and then vilify (I’m looking at you LeBron) and everyone dancing in the streets prematurely speaking of Tiger’s demise will look pretty damn foolish.

Enjoy the “fun” while it lasts Tiger bashers, because whether you love him or not, he’s the face of the sport and its biggest draw. Even with all this hype about his bad season, he’s still under 40 and only five majors away from passing Jack Nicklaus to become the baddest man to ever pick up some golf clubs.

- Will.

The Sports Snob will be published once a week here on YouBeenBlinded.com. Will R. is a journalist/writer who covers sports, news and music for several websites. His music work can be found on www.WestCoastRydaz.com

Tiger Woods and his infamous affairs led to a firestorm of media coverage, South Park parodies, Porn stars desperately trying to guzzle 15 minutes of fame like a money shot from one of their films and some of the most entertaining text messages ever. It also provided rappers an outlet to drop some Tiger related lines, something T.I quickly did.

Washington D.C. rapper Wale took it a bit further and just released a new song called “Eye of The Tiger” that not only samples a Tiger voicemail, but also tackles the whole issue itself.

The new song features Wale rapping from Tiger’s perspective, hence the title. He dropped it via his @Wale Twitter page and it’s quickly taken off. You can listen to it below.

Click here to download the song.

Say what you want about Tiger’s moral issues, but they’re definitely seemed to be a little extra satisfaction taken on the part of some people in punishing him for it. You can read between the lines when comparing it all to Ben Roethlisberger to see what I’m saying or just listen to the bars Wale drops in the song.

If the social and racial story lines are too much for you, you can always enjoy this more comedic Tiger-sampled rap video.

Regardless of all the stuff off the golf course, I can’t wait to see Tiger win again. Heck, even if he doesn’t win it’s still always worth a good laugh anytime he shoots a 69.

- Will.

Will R. is a journalist/writer who covers sports, news and music for several websites. His music work can be found on www.WestCoastRydaz.com

Haiku is an unrhymed, syllabic form adapted from the Japanese: three lines of five, seven and five syllables. Because it is so brief, a haiku is necessarily imagistic, concrete and pithy, capturing a single moment in a very few words. I believe this is adaptable to the world of sports because the most mesmerizing of moments seem to happen in the briefest of seconds. These three short lines have the potential to define a game, player, or sport as much as any single unforgettable play.

Haiku:
Tiger hunts major

Forget tabloids, dude still golfs

Stalking St. Andrews
–
Brett Phelps is a regular writer for The Golden Sombrero who splits most of his time between the Land of Enchantment and the Biggest Little City in the World and contributes weekly to You Been Blinded. Known in other circles as Slo-Mo and Captain Buck Nasty, he is a wandering gypsy and amateur conspiracy theorist. He likes skiing, getting thrown out of sporting events, and long walks on the beach. He hates being in handcuffs, as this is usually a sign he will spend the night in jail. Any questions, comments, concerns, love or hate mail can be sent to him at brettsta04@yahoo.com

The biggest story of the 2010 FIFA World Cup has been the vuvuzela; a plastic horn that the South Africans blow with no rhyme or reason during the game, before and after the game and most likely in their sleep. They blow their vuvuzelas so loud, for so long, that it makes me believe they’re using them as Prawn deterrents. The constant buzz of the horns have pissed off TV viewers and players but their must be something fun about the equivalent of blowing up balloons in a deafening fashion for 90+ minutes because fans from around the world are vuvuzela’n.

I’m down with the vuvuzelas but I understand why people hate them. I felt the same way about the Ricky Hatton fans remixing Christmas songs throughout his fight with Mayweather. It was cool the first two times but after that I just wanted them to shut the hell up and watch their man get his ass whooped. And I’m not discounting that some of the vuvuzela hatred is simply because large numbers of black South Africans are the ones playing the horns. If the South Africans sang operas instead of playing the vuvuzelas you better believe there would be an outcry about the Figaros.

Whether you love or hate the vuvuzela you can’t deny the comedy it provides. I can easily see it becoming the new Rick Roll’d. Or at least the latest stadium giveaway gimmick. This video of Tiger Woods sinking his incredible Masters chip-in with the buzz in the background almost makes me want to pay somebody to blow a vuvuzela at the U.S. Open.

World Cup Brackets

Tiger Woods shot an even-par 72 in the first round of the Memorial after three weeks of neck healing and coach firing. Whether it’s the layoff or just early, Tiger’s seven shots back of co-leaders Rickie Fowler, Geoff Ogilvy and Justin Rose. The only positive for Woods is that he might have created a new sport.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 hits shelves on June 8 and EA Sports has produced another viral video for promotion. Last time it was Tiger walking on water. This time around Tiger’s playing golf mixed with curling. The two names make gurling which is clearly the perfect name for a new event created by Tiger.

Hank Haney announced on his website Monday that he’s resigning from his position as swing coach for Tiger Woods. There was talk of Woods looking to dump Haney but according to Hank it was him that decided to end the six year relationship.

Here are a couple of blurbs from Hank Haney’s resignation statement:

In many ways because of all of the time that I have spent with Tiger, I may have learned more from him than he has ever learned from me. So I believe at this time that it is in both of our best interests for me to step aside as Tiger’s coach.

I wish Tiger well, not only with his golf, but in finding peace and happiness in all aspects of his life. Tiger knows that if he ever needs me in anyway, whether it be with his golf or just as a friend he can always call. I will always, as I have been in the past, be there for him.

I’ll translate what Hank wrote for the BS impaired: I recently learned from Tiger that I was fired but he didn’t want to look like a bigger jackass than a lot of the country already sees him as so we (he) decided that I would “step down.” I wish Tiger the best on the golf course and in his upcoming divorce proceedings. He knows he can call me when he needs to vent.

The year 1997 is one of the most memorable in the career of Tiger Woods. He won the Masters by an incredible 12 shots and did this GQ interview where he cussed repeatedly and wondered if women liked basketball and football because black guys have big dicks. After that interview Woods became more guarded with his words and life until things went haywire during last year’s Thanksgiving weekend.

During a halftime of a 1997 NBA on NBC broadcast Woods sat down with Ahmad Rashad to talk about his Masters win and how he’ll handle stumbling blocks in his life. The young Tiger with a head full of hair referred to himself in the third person and dropped some advice the 2010 Woods definitely needs.

“It’s amazing how everyone becomes an expert on my life. It’s really weird. But, You know I, what I’ve come to understand is that I am who I am and I will live my life like Tiger Woods wants to live his life. I will make my own share of mistakes and I’m gonna learn and grow from them. But I know that I’m a thoughtful enough person because of my parents that I have an understanding that I should be able to think a lot of my situations and I guess, confrontations, through and make it through OK. As I said, I’m gonna have some stumbling blocks in my life but I think with the foundation my parents have laid down for me I should be able to make it through.”

Even though it’s been hard and embarrassing Tiger’s going to make it through his sex scandal. His wife Elin might not be sticking around, but the fact that he’s hanging out with Michael Jordan again says things are getting back to normal for him.

Tiger Woods lost his cool after teeing off at the par 3 6th hole in the third round of the 2010 Masters and let loose “Tiger Woods you suck. Goddamnit.” He seemed to be a little more under control in Sunday’s final round but after an errant shot on the 13th he called for the Father and Jesus Christ.

Tiger Woods has said he’s returning to his core values after straying from the Buddhist path into the world of sex with pornstars and illicit text messages. He also said he was going to clean up his behavior on the golf course. You know, no more club throwing and no more cussing. It’s a good idea in theory but apparently very hard for Woods to put into practice. Tiger let out “Tiger Woods, you suck. Goddamnit,” after leaving himself a 60+ ft. putt on the par 3 6th hole. To be fair, who doesn’t blame Tiger Woods when they hit a bad shot?

Tiger pissed at himself on the 7th hole: