Winter Rules?

Woods and the Woods in the Hood

by Bill Ribas

If a Tiger hits a fire hydrant in the middle of a Wood’s estate, does it make a sound? Apparently not, because the news at first was Tiger was in a serious accident, only later changed to, oh no, he went home, some cuts to the face. The press reports all point to the fact that his Escalade was going under 33 mph, because the airbags didn’t go off.

A story this morning on CNN reported this:

“Police Chief Daniel Saylor said two Windermere police officers were the first to arrive on the scene.

“There was Tiger Woods laying on the ground in front of the vehicle with his wife over him rendering first aid,” he told reporters.

“He was in and out of consciousness with lacerations to his upper and lower lip,” Saylor said. “He was mumbling but didn’t say anything coherent.”

Woods’ wife, Elin Nordegren, told the police she was inside the house when she heard the accident. She said she went outside and used a golf club to break out the rear window of the vehicle, then pulled him from the SUV.”

But something is rotten in Denmark, or has a Swedish odor about it, because all these pieces don’t seem to add up.

First off, Tiger was driving an SUV, a big, big Cadillac Escalade. This is the largest vehicle in their lineup, and with a few quick coats of safety yellow paint, could pass for a school bus. This thing weighs like 3.5 tons (and you can check out all the stats here – https://www.cadillac.com/vehicles/2010/escalade/features.do). So running over a hydrant would be like what, you backing over your kid’s Lego in the driveway? You wouldn’t even notice it, not until you came back home and everyone was giving you dirty looks, except for the one kid who was crying like you just killed Santa by whacking him over the head with the Easter Bunny.

And then Tiger continues on to hit a tree (okay, remember this is all speculation at the moment, so let’s just go with what we know). Bang, he hits the tree at under 33mph, the airbags don’t go off, Tiger is bloodied from hitting his noggin on the steering wheel, and presumably knocked out. His wife, flipping out because her meal ticket could be gone, frees him from the vehicle with a golf club (those lessons from hubby paid off, eh?). Now, the fact that there’s a golf club handy at Tiger’s house shouldn’t come as a surprise; he probably uses them for lawn stakes for Christmas ornaments, after all. But what is shocking is that Elin has to hack her way through the rear window to get hubby out. What? Let me get this straight – the behemoth of the Cadillac line is compromised in a slow speed accident so insignificant that the airbags don’t pop, but the only way to get Tiger out is whacking out the rear glass with a wedge?

Listen, I’ve had some accidents in my time, and one time in a Toyota Celica I hit one of those wooden posts they used to use to keep cars from going where they didn’t want them to go. It was like a 6×6 or 8×8, jutting out of the ground about 3 feet. I knocked that baby senseless and kept going like there was no tomorrow. What’s my point? Well, that was a late 70’s car, about the size of today’s Honda Civic, and though it sustained damage, it kept on ticking. Tiger, on the other hand, does a low speed slam into a tree of some sorts, and out of nowhere his wife comes blazing not with the first aid kit, but with a golf club, because the doors can’t be opened? Where the heck is Onstar?

Could the holiday stress prove too much for Woods and family? How about this scenario – Woods and his wife are fighting, it’s Thanksgiving, and the two beers that Woods has allowed himself to have are working their magic, and he confesses to her accusations of him being with another woman. He gets upset, grabs his Amex card, and heads out in his Caddy for a ride to somewhere she is not. After fighting back the tears, the rage overtakes her, and she chases after him with a golf club in hand. While he’s texting his girl on the side, he glances up in the mirror, sees her charging after him, then notices he’s heading for a hydrant, runs it over, looks back, and bam, into the tree. She smacks the rear window of the car, then realizes he’s knocked out, and figures she better revive him, because murder one is tough to beat, and she’d rather stay in the big house that she lives in now than in the big house called the Florida State Pen.

At first I thought details were sketchy about this crash because Tiger’s the poster boy for golf and it’s continued revenue (quick, name another big named golfer that captures America’s heart). Then it hit me that the story is not unlike any other celebrity hash out, where the absence of facts soon leads to, oh, yeah, it was another woman. And in that respect, it all makes sense. What were you doing at 2:30 in the morning after Thanksgiving dinner? Fast asleep, right? While most of us were snoozing like logs, there was ugliness raining down on the Woods compound, because that’s when this happened. Would a burglar get you up at that point? Nah, honey, let him steal the stereo, I’m too tired. If your marriage were crumbling, or someone was threatening divorce, would you still be up? Yes, because the holidays magnify that kind of stress. Check out George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” At the point everything is crumbling around him, he’d rather kill himself than go home.

Yeah, there’s another woman in there, I’d bet you a Masters championship on it. Some celebrity sites are already talking about that aspect. My guess is the boys at the PGA are really flipping out on so many levels. Tiger has brought in a ton of money, he’s been unbelievable for the game, but now he’s open season for comics and bad jokes (a black man in an SUV running from a white woman, and I’ll leave it at that) and has image and spin control issues like you wouldn’t believe. The story already has an incredible air of conspiracy, from the onset of too many details to the quick he’s fine and was sent home from the hospital before you even got here aspect.

Finally, you know, everyone wants to be famous, but no one ever thinks about the downside. If you get to the point where everyone wants to be your pal, or perhaps even more (must fight “hole in one” joke urge), you’re going to run into trouble at some point. They often say it’s lonely at the top, and my guess is Tiger Woods has just shown us another reason why that’s true.