The Nightmare Before Masters

Coinciding with his with his return to golf, Nike chose to debut Tiger Woods’ new ad as their spokesperson last night.  The timing of the ad, in which his deceased father, Earl, is questioning him on his behavior, was also fortuitous, as it came to the airwaves on the same day that they news broke that Tiger had banged his neighbor’s daughter.  Fortunately, the girl was of age.  Unfortunately, she thought she was special.  Poor girl probably won’t even make it to the security roster of photos of mistresses to butt-kick out of the tournament. 

In the dream-like, black and white commercial, which is creepy enough to make you feel like more like you are sitting through a Bergman film, rather than an ad for overpriced athletic wear, Tiger stairs directly into the camera looking like he has a major case of the sads, while his Dad basically asks him, “What the f*%k were you thinking?  Do you even think?  Wish I was there to smack some sense into you with a nine iron.”  It's not clear what’s going on in his head, as Tiger’s facial muscles seem like they are paralyzed by too much Ambien.  Or,  maybe that’s just his fine acting technique that he’s developed for all future press conferences?  It is possible, considering Earl’s own track record, that Tiger might have been thinking, "Like father, like son, you hypocritical rat bastard.  Miss you!"

The ad also has shades of portraying Earl to be an Obi-Wan Kenobi type figure, as he was responsible for Tiger’s rise to be  the number one golfer in the world by teaching him to use his “force.”  He just neglected to instruct him to restrict the usage to the course. The ad is a risk for Nike, one of the few sponsors that have stood by Tiger despite his transgressions.  However, it does seems fitting that they should profit from his bad behavior, as they had the foresight to use the slogan, “Just Do It.”