US News

Below ‘see’ level is where Tiger keeps his life

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — All anyone needs to know about Tiger Woods off the golf course is what he named his yacht.

Privacy.

Woods gave up a big piece of that when he left Stanford after two years, turned pro with a “Hello, World” ad campaign and a $40 million endorsement deal, then quickly became one of the most recognizable athletes on earth.

He will invite some people into that world, but only so far.

Once asked why he enjoyed scuba diving so much, Woods replied, “The fish don’t know who I am.”

He is friends with many, close to only a few. Among his best friends are Bryon Bell, whom he has known since junior high school, and Jerry Chang, a teammate at Stanford.

When he made history in 2001 as the only golfer to hold all four professional majors at the same time, Golf Digest put him on the magazine cover posing with the four trophies, along with his US Amateur trophy.

Did he keep them on the mantel? A special trophy case? His bedroom?

That remains a mystery.

Even for a magazine with which he has had a longtime relationship, the trophies were moved out of his house for the photo shoot.

That $2.4 million home near the driving range at Isleworth is off limits to anyone not part of his circle.

It’s amazing that Woods has managed to keep such a thick wall around his personal life in the 14 years he’s commanded the spotlight.

The last time his name might have been on any police report was when he was mugged going back to his dorm at Stanford in 1994.

In response to a query on his Facebook account in October, Woods said he and his wife, Elin, had managed to stay out of gossip magazines and tabloids.

“I think we’ve avoided a lot of media attention because we’re kind of boring,” was the reply.

But that all changed Friday with a press release from the Florida Highway Patrol that Eldrick Tiger Woods, 33, of Windermere struck a fire hydrant and a tree shortly after pulling out of his driveway.

Woods has had a general distrust of the media since a 1997 interview with GQ magazine in which he was quoted as telling racy jokes in the back seat of a car. He rarely spends much time in an interview, and his answers are always guarded.

If he’s not the defending champion, he often will not go to the media center, making reporters come outside to see him.

The only criticism Woods has faced was for not taking a stronger stand on social issues, such as the all-male membership at Augusta National, for not playing more tournaments, or for cursing and throwing a club during competition.

But in all those cases, it was short-lived.

Questions about his car crash, however, will linger as long as Woods keeps it a mystery. He has dealt with a sporting media most of his life.

Now, however, he has stepped into the more relentless realm of celebrity media.

“Although Tiger realizes that there is a great deal of public curiosity [about the crash], it has been conveyed to [Florida Highway Patrol] that he simply has nothing more to add and wishes to protect the privacy of his family,” Mark Steinberg, his agent at IMG, said in an e-mail.

But that small camp of TV trucks parked outside the gates at Isleworth might not be leaving any time soon.

Would it not be wise to face the media, no matter how embarrassing, and then move on? It seems to have worked for David Letterman, who even made a few jokes at his own expense.

That’s simply not Tiger’s style. Woods can be self-deprecating, but only in the best of times.

He could easily go into hiding for the next two months.

Hardly anyone saw him in public for four months after his knee surgery last year.

That won’t make the story go away. For all the records he is chasing inside the ropes, this might prove to be his greatest challenge.