Passion is rarely pretty.

Tiger Woods is a poster boy of perversity. He’s also an icon of instinct. As he gears up for his first Masters round since last autumn’s sex scandal, Woods is still burdened by the shame of his animal ambition—which would be worse news if animal ambition weren’t also the foundation of his former glory.

Virtue means living by the rules of the world.

Victory, on the other hand, means surviving by the law of your heart.

I’m not condoning Tiger’s infidelity. Marriage is the most sacred of institutions, and Moses was speaking for God Himself when he delivered the Seventh Commandment. But divine commands are superseded by biological imperatives. In a contest that rewards relentlessness above all else, it’s only natural that a hyper-fit alpha male would have a hard time knowing where to draw the line.

A leopard can’t change its spots by hiding them.

A Tiger can’t dull its claws by sheathing them.

If there’s a moral to the Woods saga, it’s simply that every predator is imprisoned by the identity he inherits.

Desire is the mother of athletic success. Endless effort, fanatical focus, supreme commitment to a singular cause—they’re evidence of craving, proof that championships accrue to the competitors who want them most. The catch, of course, is that covetousness can’t be washed away in a clubhouse shower. Concerned parents will argue that Woods breached his obligations as a role model by indulging his insatiable appetite. I’d counter that indulging his insatiable appetite is precisely what made him a role model in the first place.

Excessive hunger is bad.

Excessive humanness is worse.

Tiger may eventually be remembered less for his accuracy on the course than for his errancy off it, but he’ll at least deserve credit for having played his balls as they lay.

Evolution made man warts and all. To be or not to be is the choice of an individual organism; to lust or not to lust is the fate of an entire species. The ugly truth about Tiger Woods is ultimately the ugly truth about you and me and everyone else, which distinguishes Tiger as an exceptionally ironic target of popular scorn. Every sanctimonious critic is driven by a tingling sense of his own superiority. The one whose brain uses the same dopamine molecules to generate libido and self-love should be careful not to sneer too long at a brother in need.

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William Blake never went to sex rehab, but he did know a thing or two about compulsive nocturnal prowling:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Which is a question that applies to primates as surely as it does to jungle cats.

Because bestial impulse makes the world go 'round, and any hot-blooded mammal who claims to have mastered his urges is either trying to impress his therapy group or only just saying, is all...