VOICEBOX with David Coury

Tiger’s Target Line

February 19th, 2010

In the brief pause at the beginning of his public statement today before he spoke the words “…I am deeply sorry…,” Tiger Woods did have authentic emotion. But only he knows what that emotion is tied to. Still, authentic it was, it is. When clarifying that wife Elin did not hit him, Tiger’s voice not only got noticeably stronger but his volume swelled, booming really. This indicated that he wanted to stress the bullet points in this section of the speech. Separate from the rest of his statement, the reading here seemed coached as if he had marks to hit, perhaps legally. The last line of the statement and his delivery is noteworthy. Here he was speaking to the people in the room and the people at home with the words “I want to ask for your help, I ask you to find room in your heart to one day believe in me again. Thank you.” There was a disconnect here in his delivery. Many of the people he was speaking to in this section of the statement were right in the room, directly in his eyeline yet the inflection in his voice didn’t reflect what he was saying, the second chance he was asking for and to whom he was asking it of. He lacked a real emotional connection to the words and the moment. Talking “eyeline” is important because this is his expertise on the course, his “target line.” Tiger Woods is a killer when it comes to focus. His pedestrian reading vs. authentic delivery under pressure has probably left the people in the room and at home consciously wondering where his target line ability was today. And more to the the heart of the matter, around water coolers worldwide, many are considering: what was his target line?