While those of us here at AWITP wish for less Tiger Woods news so we could get on with giving out this year’s Jazzy Awards, the hits just keep coming for the world’s number 1 golfer.
A woman was rushed to the hospital from Woods’s home at 2:36 a.m. The Daily News and New York Post hinted it may have Elin Nordegren’s mother. From their article:
“Witnesses told Orlando-based WFTV the younger blonde woman who was seen arriving at the hospital soon after the ambulance early Tuesday looked similar to Tiger’s wife Elin.
There were also reports that the license plate on the Escalade driven to the hospital had only one or two characters that differed from the car involved in Woods’ crash.
Elin’s mother Barbro Holmberg, a prominent Swedish politician, arrived at the Woods home a day or two ago.
The hospital is the same one Tiger was taken to on the fateful morning when he crashed his SUV.
The patient, said to be blonde and middle aged, arrived at hospital in a stretcher. A black Cadillac Escalade arrived at the hospital shortly after and a younger blonde woman jumped out and ran into the hospital. Forty-five minutes later, Tiger Woods reportedly went into the hospital.”
This came just hours after reports that Elin had moved out of the home following reports that Woods’s mistresses may have turned towards the back nine of the scorecard. From the Post, “As many as 10 women are alleged to have had affairs with the golf pro, with several selling their stories to news outlets or making preparations to do so. Fed up, Nordegren was reported to have moved out yesterday.”
Both reporters and fans are getting sick of this story, yet it only deepens, it only gets worse. There appears to be a feeding frenzy of woman trying to cash quickly while the opportunity is there.
As the scandal deepens, so does the outrage. Tiger’s image, already on life support, will further dwindle. Worse still, each sexual revelation reads so salaciously, so seedy, so grotesque, that Woods has made himself a punching bag for the ages. This stain might never leave him.
I mean the Jacksonville Jaguars orchestrated a whole gag around the sordid affair to entertain the fans; that’s how much of an embarrassment this has become. Tiger is even getting abused on his own website. Under a heading “Dear Tiger,” where he answers fans questions, fan responses have railed against and flamed his seemingly disingenuous claim in a November 20th letter from Tiger where he writes, “it’s very difficult to leave Elin and the children, and I’m sure it’s only going to get tougher. Once Sam and Charlie start school, it won’t be easy.’
As the New York Daily News is now reporting that Rist worked as a dancer at the Penthouse Executive Club, and CNET News reporting that Playgirl is attempting to substantiate and publish compromising photos of Woods, this entire drama has become a circus, a circus of unseemly details, and the Tour needs to divest itself of it, because it shows no signs of going away for many months. The gossip press smell blood in the water and they will skeletonize him like piranha.
Tim Finchem has an opportunity to look like a leader, retake control of Tour golf from Tiger Woods and his handlers, and put the Tour back in command of its own fate, rather than hitch it completely to Woods for good or for ill. If the rumors of sponsor anger and disillusionment with Woods turn out to be true, Finchem must put Woods and his troubles in the background. That way this distraction no longer burns like a proprietary torch over every Tour event.
The PGA Tour, which should have been ready to handle a firestorm like this, was not. Someone is at fault for that, because you ALWAYS should have emergency procedures in place for such contingencies. It was naivete or hubris or both that resulted in this situation for Woods, but also for the Tour in underestimating how bad the media crush could get if a story got out of hand.
For right now, Tiger’s interests and those of the Tour diverge. Finchem’s fallacious hope that this would dry up and go away will never come to pass, so all eyes are on him too, and this is “a man or a mouse moment.” His tenure as commissioner will be judged by how he handles this…the worst crisis in his stewardship of the Tour. All leaders face difficult decision…and it is by those decisions that they are judged. We have seen nothing from Tim Finchem thus far except denial, and that is not leadership.
Besides, he can always fall back on economics. Suspending Woods will draw out the chase for Jack’s record a little longer. That was Tiger’s biggest, most lucrative draw: Golf’s version of the MLB home run record chases. How could Finchem not see the avalanche of cash that brought in for baseball? Well now Golf’s record chase can extend one more year. Woods has 14, and he’s only 33. He can limp home with four. The longer chase means more money to the TV networks covering the chase, which is a selling point in the negotiations for the next set of TV contracts, which come up soon.
There…you see? We found the silver lining in this situation…or is that “dollar-green lining,” I never can remember…
