Tiger Woods: Scrutinized and Slandered

Why so many wild theories about Tiger Woods' car crash? Because nobody in the media world knows him well enough to ask what is going on.

Ignore the cuts to his face, the sore head and the damaged car, Tiger Woods will be more concerned this week at having to deal with the one thing he hates more than any other – intrusion into his life away from the golf course. While the Florida police consider whether to bring charges against the world's highest-earning sportsman, the people who protect Woods swung swiftly into action.

"Tiger's fine," reported Mark Steinberg, his personal manager at the International Management Group, leaving any other questions hanging in the air unanswered. Principal amongst these is: why was Woods driving away from his home at 2:25am? As is the way when it comes to working out some of the more personal details of this man's life, the media and public began adding two and one together to try to get to four.

On blogs all over the web the conclusion was the same – this was a "domestic dispute." Other blogosphere "plots" insist that Woods's facial injuries were caused by his Swedish wife Elin and that the crash was caused by her attacking the car with a golf club as he drove off.

No one, of course, really knows anything other than the fact that the crash happened, that Tiger was injured, that his wife had indeed used a club to smack the car (to get him out, it is claimed) and that he was treated in hospital before being allowed home.

There is, however, another fact to be inserted and it is this: in 2009 Woods, returning after several months off, recuperating from a major knee operation, has been a strange combination of surliness and discontent. Often in the past he has appeared sulky when events have not bent to his will on this course or that; on occasion he has been ill-tempered; but this year there has been something else and it has been hard to pin it down.

It cannot be frustration at his ability to play the game. He did not win a major, though he was in contention in two of them, but he did win seven of the 20 tournaments he entered, returned a stroke average of 68.84 and finished the year top of the pile in America. He was thus still the #1 ranked golfer in the world, a position he has held unopposed since June 2005.

Despite all this success he often seemed, to put it mildly, out of sorts – swearing, throwing clubs, deliberately avoiding interaction with the fans who pay good money and wait patiently to see him perform.

Those who follow the game were asking themselves why. Why should a man who, at 33, is in the prime of his life, who constantly expresses the joy his son and daughter bring to his life, who is reckoned to be a billionaire and who earns close to $2 million a week even if he chooses to lie in bed, be so apparently fed-up and irritated?

Answers are impossible to come by because as it has become clear, in 13 years of the media following Woods, often at close range, that he is the most intensely private, high-profile player not just in golf but in any sport.

When he turned professional in 1996 Woods was not only younger but very different. Remember the great, beaming smiles he offered the crowds? Recall the joyous gallops along fairway edges to high-five fans after yet another extraordinary shot? If you do not, it is understandable because that era was as short-lived as his dominance has been lengthy.

In more than 12 years he has restricted his one-on-one interviews to the occasional television chat with a selected, and probably pre-programmed, journalist. The result is usually more bland than revelatory.

Along the way he determined to erect a barricade between himself and the media. In recent years he seems to have extended this barrier to keep out the public as well, giving the impression that he is a control freak whose desire for privacy has become an obsession.

The name of his 155ft yacht reflects this need: it is "Privacy". Woods loves his yacht time, loves the fact that no one can get to him when he is on board. When he was asked why he was such a keen scuba-diver his answer revealed more than he may have wished when he said: "Because the fish don't ask for autographs."

It is a hard-nosed attitude that has created a wall between him and the game's customers.

Similarly, his relationship with the press is at an all-time low. He usually fulfils his responsibilities by turning up for mass interviews but the atmosphere is at best dull and sometimes downright awkward.

Ask him an unpredictable question, as one British journalist did when inquiring whether Woods supported Barack Obama in the run-up to the presidential election, and his reaction is one of indignation that he has not been interrogated about how he hits a three-iron.

The consequences of Woods’ poor relationship with the media and the general public? People assuming that his wife attacked him with a golf club because he is having an affair. There is no way to know what really happened with Woods and his car accident and for now people seem content to just make stuff up or make huge assumptions based on little facts and reports from TMZ.com. I for one will sit tight until further facts come out or Tiger holds a press conference to tell everyone what happened. It is just a shame that people are assuming the worst rather than just waiting for the truth.

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