The Tiger Woods Affair continues
As Tiger Woods remains at home licking his wounds, media speculation about the events
leading up to the crash at the end of his driveway runs rampant. Thus far The Woods' team is stonewalling the media and police as they stall for time.
Besides the obvious need to develop the right spin on the situation, Tiger is obviously better off if he can heal a bit from those allegedly bride-inflicted injuries to his face. You know that photos of Tiger with Elin's fresh claw marks on his face and lips will be media gold.
And those may not be the only injuries Tiger would like to heal from. The fact of Woods
slipping in and out of consciousness despite the failure of the vehicle's airbags to deploy, coupled with Elin's statement that she dragged him out of the vehicle, pose a whole new set of questions:
How did this tiny woman drag an unconscious man nearly twice her size from the vehicle? In addition, the police report suggests that both rear windows of the 2009 Escalade were broken out, allegedly by Mrs. Woods with one of Tiger's irons. Have you ever tried to break a modern automobile window made of safety glass? It is a very arduous task. If the report of the window breakage is true, Elin Nordegren was bringing some serious heat to the altercation.
So how does a world-class athlete get knocked out in what should have been a minor crash resulting in a few whiskey-dents? Is it possible Elin actually knocked Tiger out with the club? If so, the hospital's report should report evidence of the additional lumps Tiger took that night. You would think he would be icing those injuries down as well, to help keep the spin moving in the direction his management team would like it to take.
The intrepid staff at TMZ continues to provide insight into the situation, and suggests that Tiger may have been under the influence of pain-killing drugs that evening, which would have contributed to his inability to navigate the vehicle. If true, again, Tiger would want as much time as possible to pass so that any trace of pain-killers in his system would dissipate. This would provide the opportunity for Tiger to grandstand and offer to undergo toxicology tests to prove his system is clean. Of course, if the hospital did their due diligence, those toxicology tests would have been administered when he was admitted for treatment that night. With the obsequious handling of this whole event by the local authorities and media, it seems likely that Tiger was given the PC pass instead.
In any event, the aftermath of the tabloid reported l'affiare de Tigre remains increasingly riveting. It seems unlikely that Tiger will lose any of his corporate sponsors over this messiness. Woods simply generates far too much public interest to let a bit of sloppiness derail the media gravy train that follows in his wake.
Perhaps his sponsors will offer a twist on their previous campaigns to let the public know they acknowledge his faux pas.
A remake of The first Tiger Nike commercial, "I am Tiger Woods" could be
done with other victims of domestic violence posing for the camera making the claim to be Tiger Woods. Or maybe Tiger could re-enact the crash in one of his sponsor's Buicks to demonstrate their crash-worthiness. Or better yet, how about a series of public service announcements based on the Nike slogan: "Just do it."