Tiger Woods countdown: When’s the shoe going to drop?
Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife
There’s nothing like a holiday scandal to fight off the effects of tryptophan, so here’s a little bit of post-Thanksgiving gratitude to Tiger Woods for ponying up with a seriously weird one. For my money, no one’s doing a better job of covering it than TMZ — and since everyone’s repeating pretty much everything they’re posting, I say head on over there for the latest.
What’s most confounding to me isn’t the car accident itself or what happened before it, despite the fact that neither Woods nor his wife are talking to the police, though he’s taken full responsibility for the incident:
This situation is my fault, and it’s obviously embarrassing to my family and me. I’m human and I’m not perfect. I will certainly make sure this doesn’t happen again.
This is a private matter and I want to keep it that way. Although I understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible.
The only person responsible for the accident is me. My wife, Elin, acted courageously when she saw I was hurt and in trouble. She was the first person to help me. Any other assertion is absolutely false.
This incident has been stressful and very difficult for Elin, our family and me. I appreciate all the concern and well wishes that we have received. But, I would also ask for some understanding that my family and I deserve some privacy no matter how intrusive some people can be.
via Woods’ web site
The alleged “other woman,” Rachel Uchitel, has denied having had an affair with Woods, though those of us who covered the Clinton impeachment investigation know enough to parse these statements. “I have not had an affair with him” could surely mean any number of things, from an intention to do so to a variety of salacious actions that don’t quite cross the line to someone’s definition of “affair.” Plus, the fact that not every woman accused of keeping the kind of company she shouldn’t be with someone else’s husband retains Gloria Allred of course puts everyone’s antennae at attention.
Whether he did or he didn’t, or she did or didn’t, or whether Elin Nordegren caused some damage or prevented more will all come out. What I’m curious about is the shelf life. If Woods were an elected official, he’d probably have 36 to 48 hours to come clean — particularly if he were a “family values” kind of politician. The sheer weight of the hypocrisy about word and deed would prove too much to hold out on for long.
But in the end, Woods is responsible to himself, his family, and his sponsors — and while surely the sniff of scandal might make some big-dollar advertisers quake a little bit, they all employ enough crisis management PR pros to help them whether any kind of storm. So far, he’s sticking to his guns, possibly to avoid incriminating himself in terms of the conduct that caused the accident. Will he ever have to speak up? Will Allred’s involvement ultimately force his hand? At what point will we stop caring one way or the other?
The clock is ticking … what’s your best guess as to when — or whether — Woods needs to ‘fess up?
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Good point re: the shelf life. Athletes tend to get more of a pass on this kind of thing anyway, but so much is projected onto Tiger that he’ll probably have to say something one way or the other at some point. I suspect that if it doesn’t die down in the next couple weeks, he’ll do a sitdown with a friendly ESPN reporter and say a little more than what he did on his site.
Ms. Todorovich,
The real key variable is whether the police determine that a serious criminal investigation is warranted. If they call “no harm, no foul” then Mr. Woods just runs out the clock and the whole thing just goes away. If however the police demand more information, then it will be time for a change in plan.
The real question is that Mr. Woods team is really handling this in worst possible way from a strictly PR perspective. The most effective approach is to seize the story, break it yourself, and then bring it in for the best landing you can manage. Denial, avoidance, misdirection, and redirection are strictly amateur moves. When someone with as much media savvy and professional support as is making bush league plays there is probably a bush league reason.
You raise an excellent point. And I think there’s a point at which the bush-league way Woods is handling this is going to bite him. The public is willing to forgive people who make a mistake, and who own up to it — everyone’s done something stupid, and if we got $20 from everyone who ever got behind the wheel when they shouldn’t have, for whatever reason, there probably wouldn’t be a budget problem in California. Denial and misdirection genuinely feel to me like silly time-wasters — there’s nothing to be gained and you end up looking much worse in the end. The amateur way it’s been handled is really surprising, isn’t it?
It sounds like you’ve had some experience — or at the least some insight — into dealing with this kind of PR/crisis management. Does something smell fishy here to you, in terms of the loose ends? Some of the police statements have been a little curious — possibly too much so to have it end up just coming to nothing, unless it’s just being dictated by the fact that there’s a celebrity involved.
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