Tiger Woods in the new Nike ad

Here’s why Nike’s new 30-second advertisement featuring a robotic-looking Tiger Woods and the voice of his late father, Earl, is wrong on so many levels.

Here’s what the late Earl says:

“Tiger, I am more prone to be inquisitive to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are, and did you learn anything?”

And here’s why I think Nike have totally missed the point. The advertisement cements Woods’s reputation as a cold-hearted, self-centered man. It’s not cutting edge. It is pure exploitation.

Sure, Woods has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for Nike since the sporting goods company signed the golfer as a name years ago, but this is no way to resurrect his thoroughly (self) ruined reputation.

It is impossible to ignore what Woods has done. Golf nuts and men have tried to ignore it, but women and all sports fan with a moral compass pointing north can’t. And already the ad has been called creepy. I agree.

Here’s why.

1)            Nike and Woods are usng Woods’s dead father. Ewww. Woods clearly has given his OK to use his late father’s voice. Double ewwww.

2)            Tiger says nothing in the ad. He merely stares into the camera. The ad reveals nothing and answers none of the questions his late father asks. Tiger Woods doesn’t discuss; he doesn’t say what he was thinking; he doesn’t express his feelings, nor does he reveal if he’s learned a thing. He simply stares – like a cold-hearted robot. Like the cold-hearted millionaire who tipped cheap on his black AmEx card. He lets his dead father do the talking, and that’s cheap, that’s easy, that’s a major cop out.

Tiger Woods with his wife Elin, children and two dogs - the picture perfect family - or is it?

3)            Woods has been exposed as a) cheap, b) dirty, c) someone who engages is unprotected sex with many women other than his wife, d) a liar, e) an egoist who continues to play by his own rules even when in rehab – remember the individual cabin? and f) a manipulator – the latest woman to come forward says they had a one-night-stand when she was his teenaged neighbour.

And where did he get up to this behaviour? In the family car and in his office next to the baby’s crib. Eww. Eww. Ewww.

Tiger Woods might be good at golf, and he might prove it at the Masters in Augusta this weekend, but he’s bad at everything else, and he’s already proved that.

Ben Cousins on a recent cover of leading men's magazine GQ

Controversial Australian Rules Footballer Ben Cousins and his long-time manager Ricky Nixon have parted company.

Nixon, who has looked after various business affairs and sponsorship deals for Cousins for more than a decade, told me today that he and the champion Richmond midfielder severed their professional relationship two weeks ago.

He refused to comment on the reasons behind the split and said Cousins was now being represented by the Richmond Football Club.

When asked why, Nixon replied: “I’m not going to make a public comment about it”.

Nixon, who runs the Flying Start sports management company, stood beside Cousins when he was booted from the West Coast Eagles for drug abuse and deregistered from the AFL for “bringing the game into disrepute”. He was instrumental in getting the 31-year-old Brownlow medallist back into the game for the 2009 season at Richmond.

As reported elsewhere, it is believed Cousins’s upcoming documentary and book deal are part of the reasons for the split.

Cousins has had several problems during his long and successful career. He was busted for fleeing a booze bus in 2006, and suspended from the Eagles in mid-2007 while he underwent rehab for drug abuse the United States, before being brought back into the fold until his comeback was cut short by injury.

Ben Cousins with police after his arrest

Finally, though, he was sacked from the club after being arrested, shirtless with his “such is life” tattoo fully exposed, for drug possession at the end of 2007. The charge was later dropped but he was banished from the league for a year.

He is set to return to the field when the season kicks off in March.

World champion boxer Danny Green - getting ready for the 2009 Sydney to Hobart yacht race

It took Danny Green just two days – and a pile of changed nappies and school runs with his kids Archie and Chloe – to come back to earth from his brilliant 2-minute fight with American Roy Jones Junior.

Green told me earlier today that he couldn’t wait to get home to Perth after spending nearly two months in Sydney in training for the fight on December 2.

The world champ shocked the boxing world when he unexpectedly KO’d the 40-year-old Jones in two minutes to successfully defend his International Boxing Organisation cruiserweight crown. No one – except Green himself – had given him a chance against the multi-world prizefighter.

“It was very satisfying after 20 years of boxing,” he said with typical understatement. “Jones worried me. He is one of the greatest fighters of all time and he is going to go down in the record books as an all-time great. As a fighter, he is electric and so exciting.

“No one really gave me a shake, and understandably – he is Roy Jones.”

Green explained his strategy to 650 people today at a charity fund-raiser for the Loyal Foundation, which is entering a celebrity crew (including Green) in the 2009 Rolex Sydney-Hobart yacht race.

Danny Green at the Loyal charity fund-raiser

His tactic was to run in early and land a punch anywhere he could, just to “let him know you are in for a long night, fella”.

As history knows, it worked and Green landed a ripper and Jones’s long night lasted just two minutes and two seconds.

“I thought wow, he is in trouble and the punch made a helluva smack.”

I met Green, his adored wife, Nina, and kids Chloe and Archie early last year when I was writing a cover story  for sunday magazine around the time he retired for the first time. Today he told me there was no way that retirement was on the cards – at least not any time soon.

“No, I’m having too much fun, I love boxing,” he said. He returned to the ring for the simple reason that he missed the sport.

Meanwhile, the 36-year-old is gearing up for the Sydney-Hobart. “To be honest, I am looking forward to it but I am shitting myself.”

The boxer with a massive heart joins Olympian Grant Hackett, Wallaby great Phil Kearns, rugby star Phil Waugh and television host Larry Emdur on the super maxi Loyal, which will be skippered by Sean Langman, an experienced yachtie who was born on a boat in Rushcutters Bay and has been sailing since the day he first drew breath. . They hope to raise $1 million for various charities around the country and they aim to win line honours in one of the most thrilling and dangerous ocean yacht races around the world.

The super maxi was left lying in a paddock in Auckland until four months ago when Langman, who had raced in 18 Sydney to Hobarts, and a mate got their hands on it. They have lengthened it and gave it a new keel and new sails. “There’s lot of challenges in front of us and I give it [the yacht] at good chance,” he said.

Green said he had enormous respect for the professional yachtsmen and women who he reckons have way more courage than any boxer or rugby player.

“They are going out into the unknown and you are at the mercy of the climate – that’s just ridiculous,” he said. And of skipper Langman Green joked: “He’s got a pair of figs on him like cantaloupes.”

Phil Kearns has nominated the Humpty Dumpty Foundation as his preferred charity to benefit from funds raised.

If you want to donate to any of the sailors’ chosen charities, go here.

Adam Scott on the cover of sunday magazine - Australia's most popular weekly magazine

A couple of weeks ago I spent the day with Australian golfer Adam Scott for an interview published last weekend in sunday magazine.

The 29-year-old Queenslander was intent on getting his form back for the final four tournaments of the year, the first of which was the Barclays Open in Singapore where he finished third on the course that’s delivered him victory twice before.

Then Scott tied for 6th at the Australian Masters in Melbourne on November 16, a finish that pushed him up the official world golf ranking chart to number 62. Sure, it’s still a long shot from his top rank of 3rd in 2007 but it is 14 better than his previous rank of 76, and will lift his confidence going into the Australian Open in December.

The thing that struck me about the lanky golfer was his down-to-earth nature and the honesty with which he addressed his form slump in 2009. “It’s been my worst year ever,” Scott told me bluntly, without shying away from the subject.

We spent the day at the gated community of Sanctuary Cove, where Scott lives when he’s not touring the world. He has a house high on the hill with views of the ocean and reminisced about how the neighbourhood has changed since he moved there from Adelaide with his parents, Phil and Pam, and younger sister Casey, while still in his teens.

“I got a shock when I came home this year and saw a McDonald’s on Hope Island,” he said with a laugh. “I thought ‘we have cracked it, Maccas on Hope Island’.”

Scott was a dream to work with and spent hours being shot for the magazine without complaint, apart from a joke “you’re in my personal space” when the photographer got, well, in his personal space for a close-up portrait.

Ana Ivanovic, the Serbian tennis glamour who is also golfer Adam Scott's girlfriend (picture www.anaivanovic.com)

Nothing was off limits. He revealed how he was also happily involved with Serbian tennis ace Ana Ivanovic and spoke about how their relationship began and how it’s been going this year. Great, apparently.

Not surprisingly with such a high profile girlfriend, Scott has become the focus of the paparazzi and gossip magazines, several of which had  him linked with Academy Award winning actress, Kate Hudson, earlier in the year. Not true. Before Ivanovic, he was in a steady, seven-year relationship. He ain’t the playboy some make him out to be.

“When I first started playing I really flew under the radar a lot. When you have no status on the tour anywhere, you are just another one of the guys but as soon as you are successful you are in the spotlight,” he says.

A few things: Scott will take possession of a $36.95 million Gulfstream G450 jet next year as part of a promotional deal with the aviation giant. The plane is not valued at $75 million as has been previously reported.

He is a huge fan of novelist Dan Brown and reckons Angels and Demons is his best book yet. He is currently reading the latest Brown tome but has problems staying awake on flights, which is where he does most of his reading.

I’ll be catching up with Scott – and a few other top-name golfers including Geoff Ogilvy, Greg Chalmers. John Daly and Freddie Couples - again at a pre-Aussie Open cocktail party at one of Sydney’s best restaurants, Guillaume, in December.

More about that later.

Kurt Fearnley, Australian paralympian and marathoner who conquered the Kokoda Trail

Australian Paralympian and multi marathon winner Kurt Fearnley has conquered the Kokoda trail after an epic 10-day journey.

For those of us who know him and have seen him in action, we’re not surprised. Back in May, the 28-year-old took part in the inaugural Para Burn category of the 9th annual Balmoral Burn fun run up a very steep hill on Awaba Street in Mosman, which is put on by the Humpty Dumpty children’s charity.

He entered that race to help sick and injured kids and, in his big-hearted way, Fearnley later told me that he decided to tackle Kokoda because he wanted to help raise awareness about men’s health issues, particularly depression.

When I asked him about doing the trek, he said: “Kokoda is such a big part of Australian history and it’s my job week in-week out to race for Australia, so I thought it would be a good thing to do.”

Well, he’s done it. Yesterday Fearnley arrived at the finish, having crawled the 96km route on his hands in an epic test of endurance, courage, character, fortitude and inner strength.

He’s done a great thing. And, once gain, he’s done it for others. Kurt Fearnley is all heart, all hero.

He deserves our respect.

Here’s my original interview with Kurt (as it appeared in the Humpty Dumpty Foundation’s second annual Good Egg magazine.)

Australian Paralympian Kurt Fearnley usually roars along in his wheelchair at 35kph but when he won the inaugural Para Burn at the 9^th annual Balmoral Burn in May, he was cruising along at a mere two kilometres per hour.

But don’t think the slower pace was a comfortable ride for Australia’s wheelchair Marathon Man who has held every title for races longer than 800m.

“It was definitely a shoulder burn, my goodness. It was one of those things where every single metre of that entire race was a challenge – if you didn’t catch the wheel quick enough you would roll back down the hill,” says Fearnley.

“It was a grind and a tough slog and because we are usually travelling at 35kph it’s very rare to see or hear the crowd as you’re slugging it out. But in the Para Burn we did and it very rewarding to see people on the sidelines cheering for us, and it’s rare to get to soak that in.

“It was a fantastic and positive atmosphere and was a lot of fun; it was a really successful day.”

The 28-year-old world champion wheelchair athlete from Carcoar in country New South Wales won the inaugural burn in 5 minutes and 31 seconds – “the time was better than I was originally thinking”.

Humpty’s founder and executive chairman Paul Francis was thrilled with the expansion of the Balmoral Burn to include Special and Para Burn categories.

“This means that the race is truly a community event, open to everyone, and having an athlete of Kurt’s calibre on Awaba Street was amazing,” Francis says. “The crowd loved it, and that’s what the Balmoral Burn is all about – community involvement. The positive and warm mood on the day reflected how important the new races are for Humpty.”

Fearnley was born with lumbosacral agenesis, a condition in which his legs did not develop fully. He can feel and move them but they are not strong enough for him to walk on. But that has never stopped him.

The youngest of five boys, Fearnley was always involved in sport and played rugby league and well as taking part in school sports carnivals. He took up wheelchair racing at the age of 14 and has never looked back.

Fearnley first represented Australia at the Sydney Paralympics and four years later won the T54* 42km marathon at the Athens Paralympics despite pushing the last five kilometres on a flat tyre. He repeated the gold medal victory at the 2008 Beijing Games where he also won the silver for the 800m T54 and 5000m T54, and a bronze in the 1500m T54.

In the coming months, Fearnley will compete in the Sydney, Chicago and New York marathons before tackling the gruelling Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea with his family and friends for support.

The 96km trek is known as one of the toughest challenges for able-bodied walkers, but Fearnley plans to crawl it in a bid to raise awareness of men’s health issues including prostate cancer and depression.

“I crawled around as a kid, I didn’t use my chair as a young fella and I’m used to crawling, but 96 km through jungle is not something I have done before or plan to do again,” he says with a laugh adding that he likes to challenge himself and get out of his “comfort zone”.

“Kokoda is such a big part of Australian history and it’s my job week in-week out to race for Australia, so I thought it would be a good thing to do.”

Meanwhile, he promises to get his “arms cranking” for the second Para Burn next year – “if I’m in the country”.

*T54 is the Olympic classification for track event for athletes with spinal cord disabilities.

Channel Seven supremo David Leckie

Talk about the health of Channel Seven’s David Leckie has been in the news lately, but the television executive looked in fine form dining with Aussie Rules boss Andrew Demetriou at Machiavelli today.

Also at the table were Seven’s director, Bruce McWilliam, and another AFL man. Clearly, given they were dining at Sydney’s power trattoria, they wanted the meeting known. Seven and the Ten Network have the free-to-air broadcast rights for the 2009 Australian Football League season.

Leckie was sinking red wine with his luncheon companions. Perhaps they were chatting about Seven’s delayed broadcast of games, or viewer complaints? Demetriou, a former player with North Melbourne, was the first to leave.

Earlier this month, The Australian newspaper’s Amanda Meade wrote about Leckie returning to work after a three week break amid much discussion about his physical condition and “morbid state of mind”.

“Last month the Seven titan was so unsteady on his feet at a Sunrise party at Sydney’s Star City casino that questions were raised about whether he had fully recovered from an illness last April which left him in an induced coma for 11 days,” Meade wrote. “He severed a finger and the complications from that put him in a coma.”

Well, having seen Leckie today, he was steady on his feet and he looked like the three week break had done some good. As he revealed a little more than a week ago, he started seeing a personal trainer and has been trying to get fit.

Meanwhile, Machiavelli shows no signs of losing its appeal. On the next table to Leckie et al was a sartorially resplendent Barry Humphries, and son Oscar, who is currently editing the Australian edition of Britain’s Spectator magazine.

As for me? I was dining with former NSW Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski, board member of the kids’ charity, The Humpty Dumpty Foundation, and cricket tragic who recently returned from a holiday in the UK to watch the Test.

Kelly Cartwright in action before taking on Humpty Dumpty's Ultimate Burn (pic by Geelong Advertiser)

World champion sprinter and Paralympian, Kelly Cartwright, has broken her foot while climbing Mt Kilimanjaro for an Australian children’s charity.

The 20-year-old from Victoria was on a six-hour trek to the Karanga Camp 4000m above sea level on the highest peak in Africa on Monday when the foot on her prosthetic leg, which has been fitted with a hydraulic knee for the trek, snapped on a difficult part of the climb.

The mishap did not stop the courageous athlete, who lost her right leg to cancer at the age of 15, according to the founder of the Humpty Dumpty Foundation, Paul Francis. Nor was she physically hurt.

“Twenty-four hours later, she’s got a new foot and is ready to go. She came prepared and it’s just amazing what can be done,” Francis said in a progress report from Kilimanjaro.

Cartwright is one of 21 people climbing Kilimanjaro for Humpty’s inaugural “Ultimate Burn”, the brainchild of Liberal politician and Federal Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, who is leading the team with Francis. They hope to raise $2million for the children’s charity which buys vital medical equipment to save children’s lives in hospitals around the nation and in East Timor.

The climbers, including David Koch from Channel Seven’s Sunrise show, began their trek last Friday and hope to reach the 5895m summit sometime around midday, Sydney time, on Wednesday August 5.

According to Francis, one of the  Sunrise crew has succumbed to altitude sickness – which usually affects about 40 percent of climbers taking on Kili – and was walked down the mountain earlier today under the care of two doctors. He is recovering at base camp.

Click here to see who else is on the Humpty Dumpty Foundation’s Ultimate Burn.