I grew up around the game of golf. My dad started teaching me to drive using a golf cart. I was always told that the sportsmanship and good grace (or lack of) shown on the course says more about a person than how they play the game. It's all about honor and integrity. In professional golf, with all the cameras and officials watching the tourneys, I suppose cheating isn't too tempting. But the game really is steeped in tradition, and honesty is a big part of it. Cheating on your partner and cheating on the course are separate issues. Right?

I never did. He's a brilliant golfer as far as I can tell. What he does off the course is his own business.

It really must suck to live life in a fishbowl.

Yeah! We should be able to see every minute of his life, just like every other celebrity. We should be able to just stick cameras inside their houses and whatnot.

Seriously, that is the most simplistic statement.

I happen to agree with Sac here to an extent.

When so much of what makes you popular is your carefully crafted image, and you make 92% of your income off of it, I think whether he is really as he appears to be is of interest to the public in general. You can't make a living off your image and try to hide whenever what comes out doesn't fit in with that image.

I agree in this way:

Once you put yourself out there as a public figure you have to expect you're going to lose control of your privacy and that the demands of the public to invade that privacy don't really know any bounds.

That, of course, is not the same thing as saying we have a right to know about his infidelities or that our collective demand to know is reasonable or appropriate. Or that he has an obligation to abandon any attempt to maintain his privacy.

That said, Michael Jordan was quite the philanderer. It doesn't seem to have damaged his spokesperson career to any great extent.

I've said nothing of the sort. Personally I don't give two sh*ts for the cult of celebrity culture we live in these days. I don't think we have a right to know what goes on in Tiger's private life. And frankly, I don't want to know. But if Tiger thinks he can earn millions of dollars by doing nothing (my opinion of celebrity endorsements) with no strings attached, he's a fool.

And if I've learned anything from watching Tiger Woods, it's that he's no fool. Which, in my estimation, means he's trying to play the victim with regards to all the negative attention he's receiving. He damn well knows the score - and always has -, but suddenly he doesn't like it.

And seriously, my simplistic statement was simplistic on purpose...it was me being Tiger being a whiny baby. Simplified for effect. See? Simple.

I submit that Tiger has traded on his power and celebrity to put the kabosh on a police investigation.

The exchange:

Suspect's wife: "I'm sorry. He's sleeping."
Police: "Oh, okay. We'll come back."

is one I have yet to see in court transcripts.

I don't know that is so much flexing power and celebrity since there is no legal obligation to talk to the police just because they come to your door asking to talk.

To the extent that power is involved I suspect it is the knowledge that there is a lawyer on the other side of the door more than happy to remind the police that nobody has any such obligation. So you might as well go away politely and try again later.

That's true, Alex. But a transcript of the cops being turned away at the door by my wife would go like this:


Suspect's wife: "I'm sorry. He's sleeping."

<several minutes of threats, bullying tactics, and outright lies about her obligation to let the cops come in and talk to her husband>

Police: "Oh, okay. We'll come back."


Unless, of course, they knew I had a lawyer behind the door.

He's a 100 X Millionaire!!! For ****s sake, guy, retire NOW, get out of the limelight and stop doing endorsements etc. Then you can have your total anonymity and avoid dismay.

Geezus. How much money does ONE person need ???? That is so totally out of balance.

Sorry, I get like this at times because hyper-enormous amounts of money get thrown at people who have a talent for hitting a little ball into a hole, or into a goal, or over a net. I am so totally non-sports oriented, therefore it boggles me to see the amounts of money these people earn.

*prepares for onslaught*