Tiger Woods did not win last week’s US Open golf championship. Even if you’re not a golf nut like I am, you probably know that. I rooted for him, though, because no professional athlete is more compelling to watch in high-stakes competition, victorious or not, and because Tiger tops the list of superstars most sports fans I know would gladly trade places with.
Why? For starters, he’s incredibly rich, talented, self-confident, and telegenic. He got himself a top-flight college education (Stanford), competes in a noncollision sport (no Tom Brady, he), and married a woman even better looking than Gisele Bundchen (sorry, Tom). He’s philanthropic, too, his foundation having given away millions to help needy kids.
What caught my eye pre-Open, though, was a New York Times story on Tiger as father. He and his wife, Swedish supermodel Elin Nordegren, have two children, a 2-year-old daughter and 4-month-old son. There’s little doubt that since becoming a dad - Tiger’s close relationship with his late father, Earl, has been much chronicled - his priorities, if not his putting stroke, have changed dramatically.
Tiger’s unalloyed joy in embracing fatherhood, writes the Times’ Karen Crouse, “has given the 21st century male a new paradigm: the alpha athlete as ardent second-string mom.’’ Crouse recounts how tennis great Roger Federer recently called upon Tiger for parental advice and how the Greatest Golfer Ever now tailors practice sessions around his son’s nap times, savoring the nine months he took off last year (knee surgery) because it gave him more quality time with his daughter.
“The best thing in the world was actually to watch her grow and, you know, each and every day have fun with that and teach her different things,’’ Tiger confided. “I really enjoy that type of life.’’
Let’s stipulate that Mr. & Mrs. Woods have the wherewithal to indulge in every luxury and childcare resource that money can buy. Also that Tiger has a public image he nurtures with utmost care, one that may more easily accommodate a precociously cute 2-year-old than a teenager with raging hormones and a cringe-inducing Facebook page.
For the time being, though, I totally buy the package. Maybe I can’t hit a 3-wood 290 yards, but I can identify with Tiger as doting, dutiful, life-altered dad.
Coincidentally, I read the Times piece while buried in an alt version of the New Male Paradigm: Michael Lewis’s memoir “Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood,’’ which was mentioned in a story about bad parenting in this section two days ago.
Within journalistic circles, Lewis is considered positively Tigeresque: Ivy League guy (Princeton), bestselling author (“Liar’s Poker,’’ “Moneyball’’), married to a famous woman (his third wife, former MTV reporter Tabitha Soren). The father of three, Lewis’s book grew out of a series of columns he wrote on modern daddydom - the good, the bad, and the ugly - for Slate, the Web magazine.
The book is no romp in the woods (forgive the pun). Much of it is devoted to what Lewis calls the “persistent and disturbing gap between what I meant to feel and what I actually felt.’’ Kids say the darndest things, as we all know, but when Lewis’s 6-year-old daughter bellows some exceedingly naughty words in a public swimming pool, Lewis sinks beneath the water, silently cheering her on. Where did she learn such language? Guess.
Lewis confesses to hating his own kids at times and even fantasizes about what would happen if he hurled a bawling baby off a balcony. Guilt is a mighty stream coursing through the Lewis family. Finessing his parental duties when a book deadline looms, the author beats himself up for doing so. Each child successively born into the household inspires fits of jealous rage. Life with a small child “is an amoral system of bribes and blackmails,’’ Lewis concludes, not altogether humorously.
I’ll grant that Tiger, Second-String Mom represents the airbrushed version of parental reality. And that Lewis is mining its dark side for fun and profit. Each has something to teach us, no doubt, about what being a husband and father really feels like. But if I’m Roger Federer, I’m seeking a third opinion.
Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com. 
