What All This Tiger Woods Stuff Tells Us About Our World Today

Like Tiger Woods, I've sat back these last few days and waited. I waited for something to come up and make sense of all this nearly unbelievable happenings with our near-perfect superstar and face of the golf generation today. But nothing did. Nobody said anything, his camp stayed quiet (like they've always been instructed to) and our minds began to wonder.

We came up with crazy conspiracies. We added TMZ to our Google Readers. We wanted to know exactly how one of the most gifted athletes in the history of the world couldn't keep his car on the road when he was barely moving.

The first thing that popped in our head when we heard about the 2:30 AM wreck was simple ... he was drunk, hammered, and sloshed. No way someone gets in an accident, in their own neighborhood if they weren't downright shitfaced. That doesn't add up. But the cops told us he wasn't and we believed them. Kinda.

That was fishy. Then the story went downright Nemo on us. Elin knocked out the back window with a golf club instead of just opening his car door? They were fighting? Who the hell is this Rachel Uchitel lady? How does any of this make sense?

With more details sure to come, the story will either go in favor of Tiger or absolutely not, and if that is the case the once polished golfer will forever be tainted as a cheater or a liar or something negative we never wanted with Woods. Tiger was the one guy we loved to love because he was so goddamn perfect. Perfect smile, perfect swing, perfect speech, perfect family ... he cried in his father's arms after his first Masters victory in 1997 and cried after his father passed. He always had that bombshell of a wife near the 18th green to hug and kiss and pose with. Geez, even his kids are adorable.

But it's true we don't know a lot about Tiger. Nobody really does. He hangs out on "Privacy" and gambles with Michael Jordan and is buddies with Charles Barkley and Peyton Manning. But what do we really know about the guy? That he doesn't reveal much about his personal life? That he knows how to win in just about every walk of life? That he married a twin? These things aren't personal facts. This is stuff you can find on a Wikipedia page.

What this has proven is no matter who you are, the skeletons will be tossed out of the closet at some point. If you're a random guy like myself, Facebook and MySpace and Twitter are places that your secrets can be brought up. If you are a public figure like Tiger, it's incidents like this. One little accident has made everything we knew about Woods completely and utterly changed.

We like to assume the worst in people these days, and for Tiger that is no different. People think he juiced because he works out hard and got bigger. People think he's a jerk because he doesn't reveal a lot in interviews. People think he's cold because he wants to win and that's it. We don't really know any of these things, but we assume them and are happy to chat about it.

Maybe it was a domestic dispute over some personal stuff, and Elin flipped out at Tiger and they got in a fight. Trust me, I've been there. Relationships cause riffs. People argue and get pissed and sometimes do stuff they wish they hadn't. Tiger might have been taking the high road by leaving, and Elin couldn't handle it. The thing is, nobody knows, and we probably will never know. The Woods camp has been guarded about simple things for far too long to let something this serious leak.

The thing is, our superstar finally revealed he is human. We just don't really know why yet.

ADRIAN DENNIS, AFP