Tiger Woods Goes Off Course

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Tiger Woods has been the most dominant man on the golf course this decade, on a pace to win more tournaments than Jack Nicklaus ever did.  Outside the links, he has cultivated an image of a man who is worth millions of dollars in endorsements with a beautiful wife and two children.  And that's all he wants you to know.

Then on Thanksgiving weekend, it all blew up in his face like a quadruple bogey on the 72nd hole at Augusta with a two shot lead.  Woods crashed his SUV into a fire hydrant at his home in Florida at 2:30 a.m., with wife Elin taking shots at the windshield with one of his clubs.  Then he said nothing about it to the police, leaving people to wonder what really happened.  Because of the injuries he suffered in the crash, Woods took himself out of a tournament he's hosting this weekend.

Reports surfaced in the tabloid media that Woods had allegedly been seeing other women.  One of them sent a magazine a recording of a message she said she got on her phone with Woods' voice on it.

Then Woods apologized on his website for the accident and for his "transgressions", branded the reports of unfaithfulness as untrue and pleaded for privacy.  It was the kind of apology that wasn't really an apology, as if his lawyers and publicists had written it.

I appreciate Woods' desire to keep the world at arm's length.  How many of us would admit to failings in our lives without being forced to do so?  The thing is, Woods became a public figure the moment he was old enough to hit a golf ball on TV in front of Mike Douglas and Bob Hope.

Most of Woods' fine sponsors are standing by him during this crisis, as are his fellow competitors on the PGA Tour.  Why not?  He's their bread and butter, the man who got the game of golf out of genteel obscurity and into the mainstream.  TV ratings soar when he's in contention at tournaments he chooses to play in.  The products he sells have become identified with him, and vice versa.

What Tiger Woods needs to do is to first give an honest explanation of what really happened on the morning in question, then try to work things out with his wife in the manner he knows best--behind closed doors.  Then, the moment he wins another major championship, he'd better hope people will have short memories about his act of stupidity.