If the rumors are correct, if Tiger Woods truly plans to make his grand reappearance at the Masters, we could be in for quite a drama.

 

If you missed it yesterday, Camp Tiger confirmed they had hired former Bush 43 mouthpiece Ari Fleischer, now a PR crisis management consultant, to advise him on buffing up his image and smoothing his reentry into golf.

 

Frankly, I find talk of Tiger returning at Masters a little surprising.  Sure, it’s the first major of the year, and CBS would kill for the incredible ratings bump.  But the kind of media-frenzy spectacle that Tiger is going to create wherever he returns is the last thing the stodgy old Augusta National Golf Club wants – not at their precious tournament.  They prefer blooming azaleas and that soft tinkling piano music.

 

Never mind the tabloid media – National Enquirer, TMZ, Entertainment Tonight -- because Augusta National would never allow a single one of them set foot inside the tall hedges of holy golfing ground.  But Tiger and Augusta National would have their hands full just handling the mainstream media and golfing press.   

 

The media landscape for Tiger has changed.  If he thinks he can hold a press conference  -- a real press conference – and refuse to take questions on, you know, sensitive topics, he would quickly have a media mutiny on his hands.   The Golf Writers Association of America boycotted his recent televised apology for just that reason, and I have no doubt many of writers would storm out at the first hint of an overly-controlled press conference. 

 

To say nothing of the fact that Augusta National wants no part of that, either.  Augusta National has a good relationship with the media, which it doesn’t want to destroy, not even for Tiger.  And given the average age of club members (old) and their world view (conservative), it’s not unfair to assume they’d rather see Tiger to take his lumps somewhere else.

It’s official as far as I’m concerned: John Daly is a complete jackass.

 

He earned that distinction as of late Tuesday night, when he became so annoyed that the Florida Times-Union newspaper in Jacksonville revealed the ugly details of the PGA Tour’s 456-page dossier on Daly.

 

What did the dossier show?  Over the course of his wild-ride career Daly has been suspended five times, placed on probation six times, ordered to rehab seven times, cited for "unprofessional conduct" 11 times, cited for "not giving his best effort" in tournaments 21 times and fined nearly $100,000.

 

Outraged, Daly’s response was to call the reporter who wrote the story, Garry Smits, a "jerk" on Twitter.  He also gave out the reporter’s cell phone number and urged his fans to "CALL & FLOOD his line & let’s tell him how WE feel."

 

In a second tweet, Daly wrote, "To me, this isn’t journalism, it’s paparazzi-like gossip."

 

By Wednesday afternoon about 100 of Daly’s fans had taken the bait and called Smits’ phone.  "His fans are very unhappy," Smits told the AP.

 

I happen to know Smits pretty well, and I would not describe him a jerk at all.  He will talk your ear off, but he is not a jerk.  What he is, is one of the hardest-working and most prolific golf writers around.  Every year, when The Players Championship comes to the Jacksonville area, Smits almost single-handedly turns out a special section every day.

 

Knowing a little something about how the newspaper business works, I also doubt that Smits wrote the about Daly out of spite; my guess is he wrote it because his editors told him to. That, and the fact that the dossier contains so many juicy details that it is indeed newsworthy.
 

PGA Tour dossiers are normally kept quite secret; in fact, the Tour is the only major pro sports league that doesn’t reveal when a player has been fined or suspended.  The only way the dossier fell into Smits is because Daly is had sued the paper for libel over a column written by a long-gone columnist. The dossier was part of the public court record.

 

On Wednesday, the Golf Writers Association of America formerly asked PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem to suspend Daly for his attack on Smits.  No word yet what, if action, Finchem will take.

 

Fact is, Daly who has had had a Tour card since 2006,  surviving on sponsor’s exemptions.

 

Daly, the once-likeable, mullet-wearing, redneck-to-riches story, can’t seem to stop himself from writing more bad stanzas to his sad country song. 

 

 

There was a time three or four crack-ups ago when it was fun and easy to be a fan of John Daly.

 

The man had more demons than a haunted house, but boy, did he have talent.  Daly was the priceless original of the new-generation of long-bombers, wrapping his driver three-quarters of the way around his then-bloated body to clobber tee shots 340 yards shots.  More remarkably, when it came to chipping and putting, this enormous heap of a man had perhaps the softest hands in the game.

 

Oh, the talent he had, the gift, the potential.

 

But somewhere along the line – was it the third trip to rehab, the on-course meltdowns, the fights in the fast food parking lot? – rooting for Big John to get his act together became an exercise in futility and frustration.  I finally gave up on him.  A lot of people gave up on him, including the PGA Tour.

 

So it was with a wary eye that I previewed the latest Golf Channel reality show, Being John Daly, which premiers tonight at 9 p.m.  Only the hardest core Daly fans will make it through this 30-minute downer, which is scheduled to continue to document his 2010 comeback, such as it is, in subsequent episodes in the same timeslot.

 

"He is on a mission, crusade, to regain control of a life out of control," intones the narrator.

 

How about Mission Impossible.

 

Produced by the Golf Channel, Being John Daly  is a laudable effort by the network to give us more of the kind of original programming we won’t get anywhere else.  And they make no attempt to sugar-coat the reality that is Daly.

 

Yes, you get the present-day slimmed-down, loud-pants-wearing Daly, but you also get plenty of his train wreck years.  (Remember the particularly depressing sight of him being escorted off a golf course after some kind of mid-round breakdown, shivering, wrapped up in a jacket that looked more like a straight-jacket? 

 

Who knows how long Being John Daly will actually last.  After he embarrassed himself at the Farmers Insurance Open in late January, shooting 79-71 to miss the cut by a mile, he told the producers of the new show he was bagging it, quitting golf.  What was the point?

 

Daly thought better of it, no doubt when he remembered his own personal Ex-wives Club, and quickly returned to golf.  He missed the cut at Pebble Beach, where it’s hard to know whether he was competing as a professional golfer or as freak-show celebrity.  Daly made his first cut (T-67, $7,308) of the year at the Mayakoba Golf Championship, when the game biggest stars were at the Accenture Match Play Championship.

 

Watching Being John Daly is like watching a fight the ref ought to stop.

During 35 years in the news business, I have been blown off, disrespected, misled and flat-out lied to by small-town public officials, cops, career politicians, movie stars, best-selling authors, coaches and athletes from a variety sports and bosses in my own newsrooms.

 

Point is, I like to think I have to bow to no man when it comes to being a cynic.

 

But after reading and listening to some of the I-ain't-buying-it backlash directed at Tiger Woods' public apology this past Friday, cynically speaking, I feel like a rube, a naive babe in the woods.

 

They are all over the internet.  Bill Simmons at ESPN.com, Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post, Stephen A. Smith in the Philadelphia Inquirer, John Hopkins in the Times of London, just to name a few.  There are plenty more where they from, each one meaner and more skeptical than the other.

 

I don’t get it.  Me, I watched Tiger for those 13½ minutes and could not stop thinking about how shamed, humiliated and broken he appeared.  Gone was the confident, cocky golfer who was always so full of himself in the hundreds of press conferences and interviews of his I sat through. I saw no hint of defiance in his eyes.  They appeared dull and lifeless, his strength and spirit sapped.

 

For such a proud man, I could not imagine the humiliation of having to stand before you, me, his mom and the world and admit, essentially, that he was a no good, lyin’ fraud – anything but the image of invulnerable, impenetrable perfection he projected for so long.

 

I agree totally with the prevailing observation that he seemed nervous, stilted, over-prepared and over-rehearsed, right down to the well-timed pauses and glances into the camera for dramatic effort.

 

Was he coached?  You bet.  Was he wooden and awkward?  Yes, painfully so.

 

But how anyone can say that his confession was disingenuous or not from the heart – whatever is left of Tiger’s heart – is beyond me.  How do they know that?  What could they see that I couldn’t see? 

 

I don’t mean to be soft on Tiger.  Because of his peerless abilities and accomplishments on the golf course, he has been allowed to behave like an entitled, arrogant ass for too long. This mess is entirely of his own making, and he deserves every bit of the misery he has caused himself.

 

For that matter, add me to the list of folks who think he and his people have bungled this disaster from the beginning, trying to control this like he has controlled everything else.  He only compounded his problems by waiting so long to show his face and, once he finally did, he could have done without the gratuitous reminders of the good work his foundation does or his little lecture to the media.

 

His problem is not the media in general, by the way, it’s the tabloids and celebrity websites, who are joyously feasting on Tiger like he was some hapless wildebeest they chased down on the African plain.  How a man who has been in the public eye and dealt with the media for so long can be so oblivious to their needs, wants and relentless determination is inconceivable.

 

Tiger’s announcement, orchestrated as it was, was boycotted by the Golf Writers Association of America, of which I am a long-time member.  Our beef was that the three hand-picked reporters who were invited by Tiger’s people would not be allowed to ask questions, thereby reducing them to mere props in his little one-act play. 

 

Thing is, before he was finished, Tiger said most of the things I thought he needed to say, and he answered most of the questions I had. I don’t think he owes us the seamier details and, frankly, I don’t want to hear them.

 

While I believe Tiger did himself some good in the PR department with his statement, I don’t think for a moment he has put sorry chapter behind him.  Not a chance.  When he returns to golf -- whenever and wherever that turns out to be – the reporters and the questions will be waiting.   The man who for so long dictated the terms of interviews will find a very changed media landscape.

 

Tiger is still the best golfer in the world, but we no longer have any illusions about who he is as a man.  For now, at least, when he says he is sorry, I am willing to take him at his word.  Like his wife says, the real proof will be in the way Tiger lives the rest of his life.

The Tiger Woods that stood before us for 13 minutes today was shamed, humbled shell of his former self.   He needed to be, and he was.

 

Although Tiger’s apology to his wife Elin, their kids, his mother Tida, his friends, extended family, sponsors and fans was long in coming – too long – it felt genuine and sincere, and Tiger, emotional at times, had a well-earned tear in the corner of his eye.

 

"I was unfaithful.  I had affairs.  I cheated.  What I did was unacceptable, and I am the only person to blame," he said, framing the problem perfectly.

 

It was good to hear Tiger concede that "fame and wealth" made him feel that the rules of life that apply to the rest of us didn’t apply to him.  It was good to hear him admit that there is nobody to blame but himself for the mess he is in.

 

There was a complete absence of arrogance, which was refreshing coming from a man known for just that.  In fact, no matter what you think of what he did, you’d have to be as cold-hearted and cynical as they come not to be able to musteer a little compassion after that performance.

 

Of course,  as Tiger himself said, he can talk the talk, but now he’s got to walk the walk.  "As Elin pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not come in the form of words," he said.  "It will come from my behavior over time."

 

If I had to nitpick, I’d say at first he seemed, well, a little stiff and wooden, no doubt as a result of nerves and embarrassment; he seemed a little more at ease once he looked up and spoke directly into the camera.  I could have done without the lecture to the media, considering it is a very small segment of the tabloid and gossip media that has been giving him fits.

 

Tiger is kidding himself if he thinks he’s not going to eventually have to stand before the media and answer questions.

 

But over all, Tiger Woods did himself a world of public relations good today.  Now, let’s see if he really means it.

When Tiger Woods makes his grand reappearance on Friday, he plans to make a statement but take no questions from the few, hand-picked members of the media in the room.  As always, he wants to be in control.

 

Well, I’ve got a few questions, and you’ve probably got a few of your own.

 

How about these for a starter:

 

1. What the hell were you thinking?

 

2. Other than that rehab clinic in Mississippi, where have you been?  It’s easier to find Osama bin Laden?

 

3. Are you cured or whatever?

 

4. If you were Elin, would you take you back?

 

5. Do you really, truly want to salvage the marriage?

 

6. If you were a golf fan, would you take you back?

 

7. Do you understand the shock, disappointment and betrayal your fans and the sports world feel?

 

8. It’s hard not to notice that Elin is a beautiful, classy woman, not to mention the mother of your two children, while the women you ran with on the side were largely skanks.  What was that about?

 

9. Come to think of it, why no women of color?  You prejudiced?

 

10. Why have you remained silent for so long?

 

11. You have shamed not only yourself but the entire game of golf.  Do you have a long-range plan to make amends?

 

12. How did you pull this whole secret, parallel life thing off?

 

13. Who around you knew?  Do you plan to fire them?  If not, why not?

 

14. Tell the truth, did Elin catch you in the kisser that night with that golf club?

 

15. Can your mother ever forgive you?   Do you think your father would be proud?

 

16. From everything we’ve seen, you had fine parents and stable, loving upbringing.  Could you please make some effort at explaining your behavior?

 

17. When you do return, do you think fans who heckle you at golf tournaments should be removed by security or do you think you have it coming?

 

18. Do you think you are a sex addict or merely the world’s worst narcissist?

 

19. When exactly do you plan to return to golf?

 

20. Competitively, how big of a setback is this?

To everyone who stopped by our booth at the North Coast Golf Show, thank you.

 

The just-ended annual show at the Expo Center in Oaks was our first real effort to promote and market MyPhillyGolf and the response was favorable and incredibly gratifying.  Our director of advertising, Paul LaPotin, and I passed out more than 4,000 informational postcards and golf pencils bearing the website logo.

 

Now that you’ve found MyPhillyGolf, we will do our best to give you reason add it to your list of "Favorites" and return day after day, even in the dead of winter.

 

My vision for this website was to offer news and information but, more importantly, to give golfers in the region a place where they can meet and talk to each other, to share their passion for the game and their thoughts on people, issues and courses to play or avoid.

 

As I pointed out to golfers at the golf show, under "Course Finder," MyPhillyGolf empowers you to write your own reviews of courses you play.  Under the "Discussion Boards," you can start a conversation about any golf topic under the sun.

 

As you explore MyPhillyGolf, if you come across something you don’t understand, or if you have an idea you’d like to suggest, please let me know in an email.