TMZ Covers Tiger, and It Ain't Pretty

Tiger Woods staged some photos for Getty Images last week so that a legit news organization would be the first ones with pictures, a slight dig to the gossip websites of the world like TMZ.

On Friday, TMZ posted the above photo, with the headline, "Tiger Woods -- the first unstaged golf photos." It was their attempt to get something exclusive, and they did, in a way. Sure, they are grainy and look like they were taken with a StarTech camera phone, but they are exclusive and nobody else has them.

And this is where the continued problem with TMZ lies. See, they send out some photographers to get a photo and that is their story, damn the copy. Don't believe me? This is the introduction to their story on Tiger with this picture.

Tiger Woods is golfing like a man possessed -- hitting ball after ball after ball at the golf course near his home in Isleworth ... and TMZ has obtained the first unstaged photos of Woods back in action.

Yes, hitting "ball after ball ball" sure isn't a valid description of something practicing, or "golfing like a man possessed." Anyone that has gone to the range has hit a big bucket of balls, normally in the 150-200 ball range. That's practice. It's what you do to get better.

So, how long did he practice for?

Woods hit the course yesterday with 2 male companions and practiced his ass off from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM -- working on everything from drives to pitches and putts.

Humm ... golf is his job ... he is trying to get his game under control ... he was on the course all day ... seems pretty normal to me. I'm not dogging TMZ for what they do. It's something that is out there and we all use at times and we aren't always proud we do it. Gossip is gossip, and no matter how much you're against it, we all are interested by it.

What I hate is that they paste "exclusive" on something, watermark a photo and mail in the rest of the story like they could care less with what it said.

The closing sentence? "And with that news ... Phil Mickelson probably needs a fresh pair of undies." I'm pretty sure the last thing Mickelson cares about at this point is when Woods is returning.