Tiger Takes a Few More Blows

by Jeff Skinner

There is more news to digest in the Tiger-Gate mess and it just keeps getting deeper. It seems that Tiger has been dealt another blow in his public relations meltdown. Golf Digest has announced that it will be suspending its Tiger Woods column while he is on his hiatus from golf. It can be understood that while Woods is away from golf his column will be silent, but couple that with Accenture and Gillette’s pull back from Woods and the fact that AT&T has said it’s reevaluating its relationship with Tiger and it can be construed that the previously solid Woods image machine is breaking down. How long can Tiger’s image continue to take unanswered attacks?

Another professional golfer has broken ranks and taken Tiger to task for his behavior. As reported by The Daily News, LPGA golfer, Helen Alfredsson has said that she had heard of Tiger’s affairs last summer during the British Open. Alfredsson is Swedish, like Tiger’s wife Elin and fellow golfer Jesper Parnevik who has also spoken out about Tiger’s philandering. It seems that the Swedes stick together and protect their own. Alfredsson is a confident and outspoken player. At the Sybase Classic this year I got to see her up close and could see that she is comfortable with herself and is a very plain spoken and straight forward person. Alfredsson thinks Tiger is cold and crude and there is something odd about him: “In the quietest water swims the ugliest fish,” she said. Alfredsson, 44, called Woods “cold” and said there is “something odd about him. If he just paid for the escorts, I would understand it a bit more,” she said. “Then no one needed to know. But now he did everything and a girlfriend and everything.”

Could this be the start of golfers speaking out about Tiger? I doubt it. Alfredsson’s career and earnings are not as tied to Tiger as the boys on the PGA tour. The fellows on the PGA Tour have seen their earnings double since Woods came on tour and Tiger has made many of them millionaires over and over again. There won’t be many PGA pros that knock Woods. Leave it to Helen Alfredsson, she’s not afraid to speak her mind.