Buddha 1-Jesus 0

It’s only been two rounds of the Masters, but it’s hard to say that God appears to be all that mad at Tiger Woods. I suppose he could still be hit by lighting either actually or metaphorically rounding Amen Corner, but it’s pretty clear that Tiger, kinky adulterer or not, can still play golf very well under pressure.

I’m not saying he’s a great guy, but we do need some perspective. Tiger Woods is probably not the only big time athlete who’s committed adultery. I just think we should stop talking as if he is and that no other golfers, hockey players, basketball players, husbands of Sandra Bullock, ever do this sort of thing.

That said, if there’s one thing I admire about Tiger’s handling of the aftermath of the golf club in the night incident, it’s that he didn’t go the Jesus route. Virtually everyone who gets into this sort of trouble I can think of does the Jesus thing in their public apology. Whether they spend state money to visit a mistress in Argentina, had oral sex with a 15 year old country singer between steroid injections in some major league clubhouse, or did bad things with a male masseuse and drugs in Denver, they invoke the Christian God as part of their path to public forgiveness. Tiger didn’t go there and good for him. I mean even Bill Clinton (maybe even's the wrong word) did the Jesus thing after Monica.

I don’t know how serious a Buddhist Tiger Woods really is, but it looks like that Buddha has got his back for now at least at Augusta National. I figure if Tiger manages to win the Masters (a pretty incredible athletic feat regardless of how you feel about him and what he did) this weekend, the zen meditation session near you will suddenly be full of all these guys in checked pants and ugly sweaters. The Nike swoosh looks a bit Buddhist to me, I’m sure someone will figure out a marketing tie-in.

Even if I can’t exactly root for Tiger for a while, I’m rooting for Buddha this weekend. Actually, I’m not sure Buddha would approve of that sort of thing. Because it's such an incredible violation of a Bhuddist perspective about any single famous athlete's real place in the greater scheme of things, no good Buddhist would go there and that’s exactly my point. Surely, if Jesus really did watch over this stuff, the guy would have missed the cut. Look, I'm fne with people believing in Jesus, but every time someone hides behind him it makes me suspicious. Go text message that, why don't you.