Went to the grocery store yesterday to pick up the usual — bread, Gummi bears and goldfish — and bumped into a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile.
Him: How are ya?
Me: Better than Tiger!
In the last week, one of the wealthiest and most famous athletes in the world went from a carefree life of dominating on the golf course and posing for photo spreads with his beautiful wife and two babies to a sordid situation that’s straight out of a trashy reality TV show or a country song. Here’s how the TMZs and National Enquirers of the world describe it: Tiger Woods’ wife, Elin, reportedly scratches him up; he accidentally runs his Escalade into a fire hydrant at the base of his driveway; his wife shatters the back window of said vehicle with a golf club (while chasing him or helping him?) and as the police roll up, Tiger’s fading in and out of consciousness, face down on the driveway.
All this happened, allegedly, because Tiger was an undercover playa. The fiercely private Woods — his yacht is named Privacy — could be in store for a dour Christmas if there really is a cocktail waitress in Vegas who has text messages, photos and voice mails that detail a 31-month affair with Woods.
Not that we’d ever advocate such behavior, but how was Tiger not hip to the knowledge that if you are going to cheat on your wife, then you absolutely must provide the mistress with a pre-paid cell phone? Doesn’t he watch TV and go to the movies? At the very least he should have just called up John Daly for help and done the exact opposite of what the four-time divorce suggested.
Sadly, nobody ever handed Tiger the Derek Jeter manual for how to handle fame and the ladies: If you’re rich and famous, getting hitched probably isn’t the best idea. Save that for retirement, when the groupies fade, and so does the travel. You think Jeter wins SI Sportsman of the Year if his conquests don’t include Jessica Biel, Mariah Carey and Minka Kelly?
– Jason Raj McIntyre covers athletes off the field and runs the popular blog, TheBigLead.com.
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