Paul Thomas: Where Bill has gone, Tiger can follow

He was a natural, a prodigy, in a different league from his contemporaries. His appeal transcended race, class, religion, and nationality.

But he had a flaw, a particularly inappropriate one for a person of his stature and position.

Those in the know, mainly an inner circle of sycophants and enablers called it his zipper problem.

He was indiscriminate and voracious, and therefore gravitated towards the sort of pliant women who congregate wherever rich men play up.

In hindsight, it was only a matter of time before he was exposed, but when you exist on the stratospheric plane of global celebrity it must be easy to believe you're bulletproof.

And while cocktail waitresses and the like aren't renowned for their discretion, he probably assumed they'd be too starstruck, too grateful, and too damn scared to kiss and tell.

But once a conspiracy of silence starts to fray it can unravel very quickly because the bit players don't have nearly as much to lose as the leading light at the heart of it.

So the tawdry truth emerged. The media turned on him with a vengeance because his fall was a bigger story than many of his accomplishments. The rent-a-shrinks diagnosed narcissism or self-loathing, which covered the bases. His humiliation, and that of his wife, was epic.

His name was Bill Clinton. He was the President of the United States and leader of the free world.

These days Clinton is a statesman at large who criss-crosses the globe dishing out expensive advice and resolving hostage stand-offs, his mere presence lending a touch of glamour and excitement to otherwise crashingly dull blabfests.

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods, another who has lived the American Dream, skulks in his mansion as his reputation is methodically trashed.

The sheer scale and tackiness of Woods' philandering have transformed a tabloid scandal into a news event.

With each lingerie model and porn star who prances into the spotlight pathetically eager to confirm her shallowness in return for 15 minutes of media attention, the temptation to pontificate in ever-weightier terms and rush to more conclusive judgments grows stronger.

Some commentators have found apt comparisons in ancient mythology and literature, citing the role of hubris in Greek tragedy and the myth of Icarus who flew too close to the sun. Others have decided that Woods has fallen too far to claw his way back, pronouncing him "beyond redemption" and "in the rough forever".

The Clinton example suggests otherwise. He left office a tarnished figure, under the cloud of having inadvertently helped elect George W. Bush and with crushing legal debts from the spurious Whitewater investigation and the attempt to impeach him for having what he insisted was Clayton's sex with Monica Lewinsky.

He seemed destined to fade into the heavily protected irrelevance to which America consigns former presidents or, worse still, become an object of ridicule traipsing around in his wife's wake as she gamely tried to salvage their political brand.

But Clinton has not only remained on the global A-list, he has also made himself enormously rich. In his first six years out of the White House he made $110 million by writing about himself, giving speeches, and making public appearances - in other words, by being Bill Clinton.

There's one difference which might work to Woods' disadvantage. Long before Monica Lewinsky caught his eye, it was widely rumoured that Clinton wasn't someone you would trust with your wife, daughter or, if reasonably well-preserved, mother.

As we saw from his interview with Murray Deaker, Woods was earnestly presenting himself as a devoted family man even as elsewhere in Melbourne one of his baker's dozen - at the time of writing - of alleged mistresses was slipping into something more comfortable.

It may also be the case that professional golfers can be added to the list of people like school principals and military officers who seem to be held to higher standards of behaviour and accountability than a president.

What Woods has in his favour is that he pretty much single-handedly took golf out of the whites-only country clubs into the real world and transformed it into a genuine spectator sport, in the process making lots of money for everyone from the broadcasters to his fellow professionals. The latter have been economical with their public expressions of support, but wait till the prizemoney and sponsorship start shrinking.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that "there are no second acts in American life". It might have been true once, but you sense that Jack Nicklaus is closer to the mark when he says Americans are "pretty forgiving". Especially when there's money in it.