Did anyone honestly expect that Tiger Woods’ teak cupboards would be skeleton-free? As the big bosses at Yahoo.com declare that the Tiger Woods scandal made them more money than Michael Jackson’s death, one has to wonder why on earth everyone’s so shocked.

High profile admissions of extra-marital affairs should really feature somewhere near the top of the ‘In’ column of the annual 'In and Out' lists for 2009 in the US. This year there’s been talk show host David Letterman, South Carolina Governor Mike Sanford, former ESPN analyst Steve Phillips, and Jon Gosselin, father of eight and star of the reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8. All fallen men.

With Woods' story exploding around 10 days ago, it was almost as if by design, God had saved the biggest for last. For most of this week and the week before, huge media attention has focused on the golfer’s most intimate marital misdemeanors. On the night of November 27, Woods drove his SUV into a fire hydrant and his wife smashed the back window, apparently to pull him out to save his life.

A closer look revealed, however, that wife Elin Nordegren was probably chasing after Woods to smash his head, after reading a story about one of his affairs in the National Enquirer. As embarrassing details of Woods’ private life leaked out (when, who, how, and the fact that he hates his calves! They’re too short… and you know what they say about guys with short calves? Wink, wink!) the squeaky clean sportsman image, cultivated painstakingly by the sports world's first billionaire, was shattered as if by a single blow with a golf club.

And how? It’s as if his (at last count) 11 mistresses were waiting in the woodwork for Elin to smash the window of Tiger’s Escalade with a golf club (what else?) before they crawled out for their two minutes in the sun. Now that probably did a lot to lighten their blonde hair, which eerily all of them, including Elin, have to hide their prized grey matter.

The grey stuff was obviously what one mistress, Rachel Uchitel, was in need of when she invited everyone’s best friend, OK Magazine, for a heart-to-heart and declared, 'People call me home-wrecker, gold-digger, tramp, whore. I make mistakes, but I'm not those things. I have very good qualities. When you're judged by the nation, it's really difficult. It's horrible.' Aww, hun, you're not a home-wrecker, you're just someone who got paid alot of money to have a fling with a married man.

Another, Jaimee Grubb, tried to out Tiger’s voicemail yet still maintained a straight face when she cried, 'I couldn't describe how remorseful I am… If it wasn't me, it was going to be other girls.' Now that justifies it, don't it? 'I did care a lot about him... I didn't do it purposely to hurt [Elin Woods].' Oh, of course not.

Some wise man once said that the faster you run from your fears the harder they come and hit you. For Tiger Woods that prophecy has finally come true. And the real-life media nightmare is probably worse than anything Tiger could have dreamed up.

Ever wonder about that stoic look on Woods’ face? He pasted that on, after a controversial (yet in retrospect, remarkably accurate) profile of his titled ‘The Man. Amen’ that appeared in Esquire magazine back in 1997. Peppered with sexist and other off-colour jokes made by Tiger, writer Charles Pierce described the world's greatest golfer, zits, warts, and scars, of course upsetting his subject along the way. In the course of things, Pierce also upset the great American myth that Tiger was some black messiah who conquered golf courses in a white man’s game and hence qualified as some kind of a saviour of a country haunted by its racist past.

Tiger promptly went into his shell, christened his yacht  'Privacy,' and spent the next decade honing his talent and feeding the myth through lucrative sponsorships that projected him, perfect teeth et al. He communicated with fans through his website with carefully crafted replies that frequently mention his children and wife, thereby further sustaining the myth. Till, of course, the myth caught up with him. And as he plummeted from sixth place to the twenty-fourth on the influence index, he, alas, turned out to be human.

Is Tiger going to come out of this unscathed? Public memory is short, but if you still hear the odd Bill and Monica joke, then you know that most likely, not totally. But the man who made golf hip,  is clearly following instructions from the masters of spin when he finally admitted to infidelity (Aaaah! So that's what he meant by 'transgressions') and announced yesterday that he is giving golf a break.

Is Elin  - recently dubbed the world's most wronged woman -winning? It's okay, you can close your mouth, while you debate that.

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