Clearly, Tiger’s road to trespass forgiveness is made up of those who will, wont, cant, don’t care, and as we learned yesterday, those who are only too eager to exploit the opportunity for personal gain.

Surprisingly or perhaps unsurprisingly, the cast of characters seeking to exploit Tiger’s predicament is made up of people from both off and – this is the surprising part – on the golf course.

Even for the mighty Tiger, whose father trained him to ignore distraction by practice heckling him in his backswing, yesterday’s pointy-edge shot by Jesper Parnevik may expose an unanticipated vulnerability in Tiger’s armour. The character snickers, jeers, and steers will be new to Tiger.

Yet to be determined is how Tiger will be affected by fellow competitors who, with some sense of intent and purpose, will strive to ensure that Tiger is made to feel he is no longer “the man to beat,” but rather “a beaten man.” For those with no, or who never had, game to compete, the tactic may be their only hope.

The difference between being truly apologetic versus only sorry you got caught is often a matter of which sentiment you feel first. Those who deny feeling initially sorry [for themselves] they got caught will have a hard time graduating to true feelings of remorse. The cynics and the man-haters will believe what they want to believe and the Media will spin-it however they wish. This much we have already witnessed and not usually to the victims’ benefit.

For many it, unfortunately, takes “getting caught” and the associated all-fours-on-the-floor and gut-wrenching realization of the destruction one has caused to get beyond feeling only sorry for yourself or for getting caught. This much is in Tiger’s hands. How others, including especially his wife Elin, respond both in the short and in the long term is less so in Tiger’s control.

Of all the opinions out there, required reading should be Margaret Wente, who I don’t always find myself in agreement with, which yesterday’s piece was “In a case of lust over brains, a mighty Tiger becomes mortal.” To Margaret’s masterpiece I will take the liberty of adding the following bold, if not overly presumptuous final two thoughts.

First, perhaps more than any other celebrity infidelity, I suspect Tiger’s will have a more profound effect, both good and bad, on men in general than any other in modern history.

Second, the sad reality is a lot of men who themselves aren’t perfect, have tried to live a more perfect life vicariously through Tiger’s apparent perfection. For a lot of men their ultimate disappointment wont be with Tiger, but rather with themselves who, without a role model to excuse their own sins must now choose how to face their own daemons. This would be the best case scenario. The worst case scenario would result if most come to the conclusion “well, if he can do it…”.

In the meantime Kudos to Accenture who, in their latest advertisement below, apparently have no creative difficulty whatsoever demonstrating how very clearly they get it and, reading between the lines, their expectation that Tiger gets it too.

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