Tiger Plays His Best “Shot”

Nineteen days have passed since the sky came crashing down on the world of professional golf. One player’s marital infidelity, a crash in the night while under the apparent influence of some intoxicating agent, and then silence—except from a chirping chorus of females joyously proclaiming to have shared sexual experiences with who? Tiger Woods? How could this be?
Then, suddenly the world of professional golf went silent. Nothing of substance came out of PGA Tour headquarters. The Golf Channel became a series of “Paid Programming,” “Playing Lessons,” “Big Break” time-fillers. Oh, there was a tournament, one of those unofficial functions with a selected field. It bore Tiger’s name, but Tiger called in and bailed out. I don’t even remember who won. I do remember that the player who filled Tiger’s playing spot, the Irish Graeme McDowell, finished second. The oil company that sponsored it lost—or, maybe it didn’t. A lot of us tuned in just to see how a Tiger tournament came off without Tiger. The commentators talked in the manner of people walking barefoot on broken glass.
In other words, the world of golf stood still. Elin’s mother, identified only as “Tiger’s mother-in law,” flew in from Sweden, fell ill one night and had to be take to hospital. A few days later a dray truck pulled up to the residence in Windermere and loaded several large boxes. Apparently, Elin and children were preparing to take flight. (Meanwhile, Jesper Parnevik blatantly said he was sorry he ever introduced the two, while Elin served as the Parnevik family nanny. Parnevik was belayed by some critics.)
After several days, Jack Nicklaus was asked for his opinion on the matter. He said, quite wisely, I thought: “It’s none of my

Tiger Plays His Best “Shot”

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