January 1 -- With new reports about Tiger Woods baring his body to Florida Highway Patrol troopers, the virtual certainty that the viral e-mail claiming to tell all about what really happened on November 27 is a fake, and the alleged security-cam video of Woods in a passionate lip-lock with someone not his wife (in a parking garage; could it be tackier?), you may have missed the New Year’s Eve announcement that the PGA Tour had ousted Woods as the host of its July 4 AT&T National golf tourney.
Some links watchers believe the tour’s announcement means that tour officials know Woods won’t be back on the course by July, or that the tour shanked Tiger into the hazard to chastise him for his bad behavior.
Out of bounds. Neither suggestion is true, according to Ty Votaw, a spokesperson for the PGA Tour.
“The decision for [Woods] not to serve as host for the 2010 AT&T National was in no way the result of any disciplinary action,” Votaw tells Boston Golf Examiner.
Return unknown. Tour officials also have no knowledge about when Woods will return to professional golf, Votaw notes. Should he pick up his clubs by July, however, the world’s number one golfer is still out as host of the AT&T National event.
“If he returns prior to [July],” Votaw says, “the decision was still made that he would not serve as host of the AT&T National for 2010, given his indefinite leave and the uncertainty of his schedule for the foreseeable future.”
Mutual decision. PGA Tour officials made the decision to drop Woods as host of the AT&T event “within the last couple of weeks,” following “mutual discussions between the Tiger Woods Foundation and the PGA Tour,” Votaw notes.
The tour has to determine whether Woods' banishment from his position as AT&T National host will be permanent, Votaw says.
AT&T drops Tiger. The tour announced its decision after AT&T stated on December 31 that it had dropped its corporate sponsorship of Woods. AT&T, which had not planned to make such a statement Thursday, did so in response to a reporter’s question, Votaw adds.
Fat lip. About the FHP incident -- Woods reportedly met with two FHP captains and a trooper on December 1 at an “undisclosed” Orlando location to receive his $164 traffic ticket, and to show police officers that the only injury he suffered from his notorious car crash was a fat lip, says WESH-TV in Orlando, FL.
Click here for WESH’s exclusive video about the Woods/FHP meeting.
It is curious, however, that the police department waited until December 30 to announce the results -- let alone the fact -- of its meeting with Woods. Not to mention that a spokesperson released the information to clear up so-called “false reports” about Woods’ health.
The Waggle Room’s Ryan Ballengee points out several oddities about the FHP situation. The one that proves particularly baffling is this: Since when does the FHP, which claimed last month that its investigation was over, care about refuting reportedly “false” news reports?
Incredible sources. Well, perhaps the viral e-mail -- which “etsix” launched December 19 on GolfWRX.com, and which Boston Golf Examiner ignored from the outset, assuming it was a colossal figment of someone’s overactive imagination -- instigated the FHP announcement.
The e-mail, which purported to offer minute details about what supposedly happened between Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren, prior to Tiger’s one-man car crash, exploded online and may have impelled the FHP to clarify the situation.
But, seriously: “I have a Member who lives 10 houses down from Tiger in Isleworth. My Member plays golf with and is a good friend of an IMG insider who got the following information directly from [Mark] Steinberg [Woods’ agent] and related it to me”?
With sources like that, how could the hundreds of news and gossip outlets that reported the details of the e-mail as gospel possibly go wrong?
Click here for Geoff Shackleford’s hilarious version of the “The New Inside Story on Tiger Woods” e-mail.
Tiger’s worst nightmare. As for the Tiger kiss caught on candid camera, The National Enquirer says the images could cost Woods “millions” in a divorce settlement, and that he could lose his kids because of it.
“It’s Tiger’s worst nightmare!” a “close source” apparently yelled at the Enquirer, judging by the exclamation point.
The reportedly grainy recording purports to show Woods “passionately” embracing an unidentified, “tall, slinky” woman, according to the source.
Could the statuesque, sensuous, unknown babe be Woods’ wife? Just wondering, because, after all, inquiring minds want to know.
It’s been a spectacularly unhappy ending to an otherwise winning year for Tiger Woods. Look back on Tiger’s year, on and off the course, in this 2009 photo gallery of the man who caused his own fall from the pinnacle of sporting achievement to the depths of humiliation and disgrace.
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