Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods

The problem he faces today is that since going pro in 1996, the links giant has crafted a larger-than-life persona through the worldwide media – and now the media are putting his image in a different light. The Tiger Woods scandal, it turns out, shows that he is only human after all.

Woods built his “brand” on his own terms, image experts say, It was his “own destiny,” as his late father, Earl Woods, once put it. A result, Woods recently became the first athlete to break the $1 billion earnings mark. But the carefully scultped, squeaky-clean image may have glossed over personal faults. The question now is whether, in the end, the public persona refracted rather than reflected the actual Woods, and what that means for the image next.

Millions around the world adore the Tiger icon – the man with the rocket swing. While many of his fans simply want the media to lay off Woods, the intense interest, some media experts say, is justified. Woods has been linked in some reports with other women, including a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas. That has resurrected stories from early in his career that described Woods as a well-known “hound” with the ladies. These stories seem more insightful, critics say, than a decade of careful reportage and image sculpting.

On Wednesday, Woods apologized for unspecified “transgressions,” but he also lashed out at those who called on him to exhibit contrition by press release. After Woods turned pro, writes Esquire correspondent Charles Pierce, “the marketing cocoon around him became almost impenetrable.” He continues, “The Tiger Woods that was constructed for corporate consumption was spotless and smooth, an edgeless brand easily peddled to sheikhs and shakers. The perfect marriage with the perfect kids slipped so easily into the narrative it seemed he’d been born married.”

One fellow golfer, Jesper Parnevik, took issue with that image on Wednesday, apologizing for introducing Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren, who had been a nanny for the Parnevik family. But so far, Woods has handled the response to the scandal as he’s handled many things before: saying no more than he has to.
He refused to talk to Florida state police three times, as allowed by law. Only after his alleged voice popped up on a voice mail to a possible mistress did he make a vague public contrition.

To be sure, some insist that Woods’s unique iconic status will carry him through this crisis. “Tiger, the icon, doesn’t lose his cool. Icon Tiger doesn’t get photographed with self-promoting gummi-tarts,” writes image consultant Eric Denzenhall on The Daily Beast. “And Icon Tiger doesn’t line-item air his dirty laundry in front of millions of people just because they want to hear about it.”

He continues, “In this way, Tiger is like another icon, Steve Jobs. To the rabid fury of the press and public-relations priesthood, Jobs consistently violates every rule of damage-control doctrine – he’s arrogant, secretive, slippery, uncuddly … and comes out on top after media storms.”

But that view, says Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post, may be unsustainable now. While Woods’s major sponsors, including Nike and Gillette, have so far stuck by him, a lot is still on the line as the PGA Tour is just now lining up sponsorship deals for after 2010.

“There’s a reason that generations of PR professionals have advised all manner of miscreants to get the bad news out early and put the embarrassment behind you,” Mr. Kurtz writes. “If you’re a big-deal public figure, it’s going to come out anyway, especially in this age of blogs and gossip sites, of voice mail and texting.”

He adds, “So you get what Tiger’s got right now: an image as a stonewaller, followed by an apology for unspecified ‘transgressions.’ Worst of both worlds. A bigger handicap.”