zombie earl eats tiger's brain

"I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are. And did you learn anything." -- earl woods

"i want to find out who the skanks were. i want to find out if you caught any communicable diseases. and i want you to hold still so i can bury this nine iron in your skull." -- elin woods

tiger woods is back! isn't that great? he's a famous golfer, you know, but he's been away from the game for awhile.

now, just in time for the masters, he's back with a new lease on life, a new escalade, and a new tv spot selling nike. that's nike the lifestyle, we have to assume, given that no products are mentioned.

isn't it a great spot?! tiger just stands there, looking sullen, as his long-dead father quizzes him about something very important. we're not sure what...maybe it's that young tiger swiped some rum from his parents' liquor cabinet. or maybe he blew off putting practice to go on the mike douglas show. or maybe it's that he had sex with an assortment of porn stars, escorts, and his neighbor's daughter.

it's a great spot! on so many levels, not the least of which is that earl woods allegedly was a huge womanizer. that's why having zombie earl crawl out of the grave to lecture tiger, like jacob marley hectoring ebeneezer scrooge, is such a brilliant, ironic ploy by team nike.

watching this spot, who could resist embracing the remorseful, misunderstood eldrick, and then rushing out to purchase an assortment of nike balls and, um, other equipment?

who could resist gluing their eyeballs to the tv set during a week of tradition like no other -- the masters? particularly when billy payne, chairman of augusta national golf club, also is lecturing tiger about the great golfer's alleged moral inadequacies.

augusta national, you know, is legendary for its upstanding tradition of excluding women, blacks, and other undesirables from its ranks. so payne knows of what he speaks when he says tiger is "a disappointment and a disgrace as a man and a role model."

the drama is palpable! can you feel it? and we haven't even talked about the golf yet! tiger is a really, really good golfer. did we mention that? that's why everything he says and does is so important, and why this commercial is so profound and really, really good.

yay, tiger! yay, nike! yay drama, and the 24-hour coverage thereof!

important safety note: watch out for zombie earl! he's eating brains. yours could be next!