Some Do, Some Don't Like Fame

By George White

There are people – everyday people – who grow accustomed easily to fame, and there are others who never do. Some famous people rather like being stared at as they go from place to place. Others never do get accustomed to it, no matter how much they have been in the spotlight.
 
Tiger Woods is one who never has grown accustomed to celebrity, though he generally is polite about it. He is quite comfortable being in the playing field hitting shots, but obviously ill at ease when crowds begin to circle in as he walks off the course. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Fuzzy Zoeller, Phil Mickelson, just to name a few, don’t seem to mind the intrusions at all.
 

“You become accustomed to it, yeah, but still it feels a little awkward when everyone is looking at you,” Woods says. “That's something you never really feel comfortable with, ever - at least in my case. I guess it's one of the reasons why I put my head down a lot. So many eyes are looking at you. I mean, why? I'm just walking.”
 
Tiger will never feel comfortable in the goldfish bowl, and that in no way means he’s a bad person. Only about 99.9 percent of the general population would feel the same way. He realizes that he has become fabulously wealthy because he is so idolized, however, and so he has come to terms with it. But that doesn’t mean he will ever enjoy it.
 
Mickelson, on the other hand, is extremely comfortable around the throngs. He doesn’t yet have the adulation of a Tiger Woods, but he isn’t too far from it. He will sign autographs until just about everyone has left, he pastes on that goofy grin when he is walking the fairways, and the galleries seem to genuinely like him.
 
“I don't really look at myself like that, I guess,” he says, debating whether he is a ‘celebrity’ or not.
 
“When I think of a celebrity, I think of guys who are in movies and in Hollywood. I play golf for a living and I've got a wonderful family and we have a lot of time away where we're able to just be ourselves and not be interrupted. I don't consider myself at that level yet.”