This year may go down as the Taming Of The Tiger, says Paul Lewis
Now that we're done - we think - with the mistresses and the revelations, it's time to consider just how much the Tiger Woods affair will change golf. Or change Tiger.
This year may go down as the Taming Of The Tiger. It was heading that way even before the dreadful accelerant of that night, the Caddy, the fire hydrant, the tree, the club-wielding wife and the mistress merry-go-round and now his indefinite break from golf.
This year, Tiger did not win a major; 2009 was the first time he was beaten when leading into the final round of a major - when little-known Korean Y E Yang overtook him to win the PGA Championship.
Which isn't to say Woods was in decline - he still won five PGA tournaments; was leading money winner (by about US$4 million); was still the world No 1-ranked player. It wasn't the first time he'd missed a major (the last was 2004) and no one then wrote about the caging of the Tiger because such a thing seemed ludicrous.
Not any more.
Even before he announced his break from the game, there were clear signs that the scandal would mean the privacy-obsessed, image-conscious Woods would face an enormous struggle to keep the Tiger Train rolling.
He has always been an intimidating player. Those paired with him often crashed and burned - reeling under the pressure of playing against him; from vast galleries of Tiger fans. Woods played to that, wearing his stern game face and letting opponents know they were subject to a force of nature.
Woods built an image as an athlete, a family man, a person of values; a colossus of talent and will who wants to be the best there ever was.
Even the name, Tiger, warned opponents of their peril. He was aloof, impenetrable, majestic, dangerous ... just like a tiger. That mystique now has ragged holes in it.
There are even reports suggesting he has been using Vicodin, maybe to help with knee pain, and Ambien, the sleeping pill which, for some, can enhance the sexual experience.
So the man of stone became a figure of fun; the iron will supported by a little bottle; the clean living American hero whose mistress - or one of them - said they had Ambien-fuelled sex.
The psychological backwash will be enormous - not just the negative effects on Woods but the positive effects on his opponents. Arch rival Phil Mickelson, for example, must be rubbing his hands. Sweden's Jesper Parnevik, who introduced Woods to his wife Elin, had a crack at Woods.
He won't be the last.
Now, if the tide of sentiment on Woods' website is any measure, many of the fans who provided the pressure on his opponents are turning on him. Next time Tiger turns up to tee off, some will be teeing off at him.
How, or if, he masters that will be fascinating to watch. Golf is difficult enough even without the concentrated gaze of millions burning a hole in your back; watching, waiting for another sign of weakness.
It's hard enough trying to beat Jack Nicklaus' amazing record of majors won. He has 18. Tiger has 14. Nicklaus himself says the fans will forgive Woods and that he will come right.
But Woods lied and was caught out. The revelations since have painted him as a man who projected a false image while living a very different life. People do not react well to being conned.
WHICH IS why the media-bashers have quietened down; those who swing into action every time a celebrity is embroiled in a scandal. Supporters angrily lash out at that very media - as if it has created the problem.
The media didn't play bumpy with the hydrant and the tree. It wasn't the media that smashed the windows of a car with a golf club. That'd be Mr and Mrs Woods.
And yet you get strange folk on Tiger's website like someone called Beaper (odd, isn't it, how most of these folk never use their real names and some are barely literate) who said before the mistress revelations: "What's the matter with you thinking Tiger OWES us an explanation for his actions? Want to know why there are so many storys (sic) out there concerning the Woods family and their percieved (sic) family problems? It's because these sleazy publications/TV hosts are in the business of feeding the trough you nitwits are eating from!! Tiger and Elin owe us nothing!"
Quite apart from the abhorrent modern habit of using exclamation marks like they are clubs, Beaper echoed many of the thousands of messages on Tiger's website at that stage.
Many saw the media as the root of evil. Many trotted out that old saw - if ordinary folk had bumped their car into a fire hydrant, the matter wouldn't see the light of day, so why make a fuss re Tiger?
Because it's news, numbnuts.
News isn't news only because it agrees with your sentiments. News is not what right-thinking and proper people would print. That's censorship at best or propaganda at worst.
Like the bloke who wrote in to Tiger's message board with a little number entitled "Why are the Jews trying to destroy Tiger?"
Must have been a Jewish fire hydrant ...
Woods is the best known sportsman on the planet. He earns well over US$100 million a year. He makes that sort of money because fans - even the jock-sniffing, tongue-lolling sycophants who wrote some early messages of support on his website - watch him on TV.
Like it or not, that gives us all a stake in Tiger, whether he likes it or not. If you want fame, riches and global recognition - the sort of acknowledgement that enables you to charge appearance fees in the millions - then you sometimes have to cope with the other side of the coin.
It's the same for politicians, sportspeople, movie stars, musicians. Gain through being in the public eye and you can scarce protest if that eye is turned, unblinking, on you. It's a kind of unwritten, unspoken pact; a law of life.
If Tiger doesn't play dodgy dodgems at 2.25am and if Mrs Woods doesn't wield a golf club, there is no story.
We evil media are not involved. QED.
