"Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love." - Charlie Brown

Happy Valentine's Day

I've never been accused of being a hopeless romantic. So it's dinner in and a new episode of Top Gear. Or we might watch the Westminster Dog Show. But I promised her Arby's later this week.

Super Model Shuffle

Beautiful day here. Hit the upper 70's and I celebrated with a hammered 15 miles on the bike and then a medium bucket of balls. I'm working on riding more aggressively, getting up out of the saddle to charge instead of downshifting at the bottom of a hill. The legs are feeling it tonight.

To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
When you're wrong admit it,
And when you're right, shut up!
- German proverb

Todd and I had a very brief conversation yesterday about whether or not Tiger will come back to dominate the game. I don't think it's gonna happen. He may win a tourney or two each year and maybe even a major some day. But I'm sayin' his days as the number one golfer are long gone and he'll struggle to stay in the top five, maybe the top ten.

What happened in Dubai this weekend illustrates the problem. He played great golf in the third round, going bogey free for all 18 holes to pull within one stroke of the lead. Sunday he collapsed, shot a 75 and finished tied for 20th. He's gone 17 tournaments without a win and the streak looks to continue.

He's Dorian Gray on the golf course. His narcissism, fed by a father who told him he could do no wrong and was better than everyone around him, finally exacted its sure and certain toll. And there's no going back. He was always fatally flawed, even while he played near flawless golf. But that's the point. He was not, is not his golf game and the incongruity between the two could only be maintained for so long before the one took down the other.

He could, in theory, return to his former dominance but it requires a restoration from the inside, a new birth if you will. Put the inside right and the outside is capable of renewed, if not greater success. (Cf. Michael Vick) But despite saying the right things Tiger's actions shows he's still the same person.

Almost exactly a year ago he said that when he returned to the game he's show it more respect, eliminating some of the boorish and selfish behavior that characterized his game before the hiatus. Today he was fined an undisclosed amount by the European Tour for spitting on the 12th green after missing a putt for par. I've never seen anything like that on any public course. No one I've ever played with would do something that crude and inconsiderate of those playing behind. Tiger is also back to slamming his clubs into the ground and swearing in full voice after a bad shot. So much for respecting the game, never mind the parents who take their kids to a tourney.

It's not OK to totally screw up the truly important stuff in life. But when it happens the only road to restoration is humbling oneself. The Bible calls it repentance. It means owning one's sins, discarding every remaining scrap of self-dignity and acknowledging the One who alone can forgive. Tiger has said all the right things but his behavior tells us he's the same old Tiger who has no respect for the game of golf or for the rest of life's laws.

IMHO