Pat Perez blasts the media: “You don’t know me”

Pat Perez is a PGA Tour player who recently came under fire by the media after writing some harsh words about Tiger Woods’ non-existent career. Now he’s firing back by claiming that he’s more than the media would portray him to be.

Pat Perez, if you’ll recall, said the following about Tiger Woods during his talk show on SiriusXM:

“The bottom line is, he knows he can’t beat anybody. But he’s got this new corporation that he started, so he’s got to keep his name relevant to keep the corporation going. He’s going to show up to a few events, he’s going to try to play. He’s gotta go out there and show the Monster Bag, he’s going to show the TaylorMade driver. He’s going to get on TV, he’s got the Nike clothes, he’s gotta keep that stuff relevant. But the bottom line is he knows he can’t beat anybody. He knows it.”

Now, the insinuations that Tiger Woods is merely going through the motions for his sponsors weren’t well received. Neither were later suggestions that Woods might have feigned injury after a poor opening round in Dubai. These are his own speculations, not grounded on any type of fact, and yet he’s surprised he got hate for hating on an iconic figure in golf.

SEE ALSO: Tiger Woods says he’s doing everything he can to play the Masters

Perez, for his part, feels the media is persecuting him for his frank opinions and have taken his remarks out of context. Of course, that’s nothing new from the scribes, according to Perez.

“The media often condense my entire career into a couple of moments. That stuff used to infuriate me. But while I was sitting on my couch in Arizona last summer — with a cold one in one hand and my arm around my wife — I realized that I had to stop listening to all the outside noise and remember who I really was. My wife was the one who helped me come to that resolution. I owe her so much.”

Many think they know who I am, but the truth is, I’m so much different from how I’m portrayed by the media. Some of you may think that I’m a jerk. But what I am is a straight shooter. My whole career — my whole life — has been packed into three or four moments, when there’s really so much more to it.”

The piece raises plenty of questions: We’re not supposed to condense Perez’s career into three or four unflattering moments, but we ought to condense it into eight or 10 flattering ones? And is being a “straight shooter” and a “jerk” mutually exclusive? If a player says something offensive but does so with great frankness, ought we give him a pass?

If you can’t take the heat, after doling out a heaping platter, then get out of the kitchen. You don’t see players like Bubba Watson, who has been “hated” by the media for years, trying to explain away remarks they’ve made. No one is going to know everything about a person in the limelight, but if they are frequently giving their strong “straight shooting” opinion, people are going to disagree and know you for that. It’s good that he’s come to the realization that he can’t listen to the “background noise” but that doesn’t sound like he’s learning from his mistakes that got him there in the first place.

The final word on Perez’s remarks about Woods: They were frank, honest, and straight shootin’. However, they were also offensive. The same is true for many things that have happened in Perez’s professional career. This isn’t to discount the fact that he’s a “blue-collar Mexican-American” kid or any of the other elements of his narrative. If he needs to write something like this, he should be asking “why do they hate me?” rather than saying “they don’t know me”.

SEE ALSO: Pat Perez recovered from surgery with “a lot of booze”