Tiger Woods is finally being brought to his knees.
Augusta couldn't do it. Pebble Beach, neither. Nor could any of the vaunted courses across the pond.
A four-stroke deficit on a Sunday doesn't faze Woods, either. Having to get up and down from 45 yards away, his ball in a pile of thatch? Piece of cake.
But this isn't the golf course, it's the fish bowl of celebrity.
Woods, who was involved in a single-car crash just outside his home over the weekend, is playing this one like Greg Norman trying to hold on to a lead in a major on the final day.
Tiger is shanking them and his approach shots are plopping into water hazards.
Woods is hoping that the statement he released on his website will satiate those among us who are a tad curious---and that number is no doubt in the tens of millions, at least--- about what went down, and why at 2:25 a.m. Saturday, when Woods smashed into a fire hydrant and then a tree with his Cadillac.
The statement takes responsibility for the crash---duh, it was a single car mishap right out of the driveway; who ELSE'S fault would it be?---and praises the actions of wife Elin Nordegren, who according to reports used a golf club (I imagine there are a few of those lying around the Woods house, huh?) to smash the windshield so she could help extricate her husband from the vehicle.
The statement also apologized for the embarrassment the incident has caused, and it vowed that it will never happen again.
Bounding out of your driveway, ramming into a fire hydrant and then careening off a tree? I would hope not!
Sorry, Tiger---not enough. Your statement was a 75-yard chip shot when you're 90 yards away from the green.
Tiger left this one short, alright. Now he needs to blast out of some serious rough, just to save bogey.
What was conspicuous by its absence was any REAL explanation of what happened late Friday night/early Saturday morning. Woods chided rumors and the irresponsibility of some of the sensationalistic reporting of the incident, yet did nothing to stop either---unless he fancies himself living in some fantasy land where folks take everything celebrities say at face value.
Was he popping out to the store for a late night Haagen Dazs run for his wife? Did he run out of Doritos?
The number of viable, explicable reasons why one leaves his/her home at 2:30 in the morning doesn't create a very large cache. Unless Tiger took a graveyard shift to earn some extra dough, then we know he wasn't on his way to work, either.
Why not come clean? Woods has, at press time, canceled three separate interview requests made by state troopers who want to ask, basically, "Hey, what happened?"
And the troopers are giving Tiger a wide berth here. Next time you or me or Joe Shmoe try to put off cops trying to investigate an incident at our home, see what happens.
Tiger Woods is the Muhammad Ali of his time, in that he's recognizable worldwide. He's iconic, and his mere being transcends golf, and even the entire world of sport. So when he crashes his car at 2:30 in the morning when no one else is around, it'd be nice to know what the hell went down.
The rumors, meanwhile, continue to swirl like the wind at Candlestick Park.
Tiger and Elin had a fight. Tiger stormed out. If that's true, then good thing she used the golf club to smash the windshield and not his skull.
Tiger's having an affair and was setting out for a late night tryst. If that's true, see above re: Elin and the golf club.
The rumors that Woods derides, however, are like any vegetation: they need fertile ground in which to germinate. And it doesn't get much more fertile than silence and cryptic "statements" that say everything yet answer nothing.
You'd think Tiger would know this. His whole life has been spent in the fish bowl, just about. You'd think he'd know how to handle an incident like this as if it was a par-4 at the Buick Open.
But Tiger is stumbling and bumbling. He's making a mess of this hole.
Meanwhile, the vegetation of rumor and innuendo is climbing, like a vine, around his life. And that stuff grows fast.
He ought to know that.
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