Tiger beat

By Rachel Krueger

Alright, to save time we’re going to go ahead and take a head-count. If you have slept with Tiger Woods, I’m going to need you to go ahead and raise your hand. Yes, the young lady in the pink, I see that hand. Yes, ma’am, you and your daughter, check. Yes, in the back there . . . Nana, is that you?

By now the number of women not claiming to have shared a bed with the golf mogul is foundering under the weight of those who have. At the time of writing, 11 women have claimed that dubious prize and another handful are likely to report in by the end of the week. It has gotten to the point where news sources have to tack stories about Woods’ mother-in-law’s recent collapse onto the end of yet another story about yet another lady-pal because they can’t spare the (metaphorical) ink. I mean, the woman may be gravely ill, but TIGER HAS BEEN FORNICATING!!! AGAIN AND STILL!!!

But where are they all coming from? Rachel Uchitel was the first Tigress to be unearthed, but she was dragged from anonymity and through the mud by the National Enquirer. To date she is still all, Naw dude, those panties ain’t mine. This seems to have opened the floodgates, however, for every opportunistic young cocktail waitress or swimsuit model (or former Trashy Girls Lingerie employee or porn star [former or otherwise]) to claw their way into the spotlight. It’s like a 15-minute free-for-all.

Because Tiger doesn’t seem to be denying any of them. He was pretty well damned after the first few, and sorting through which ones he has and hasn’t actually slept with is only going to lend an air of lurid accounting to what is already a feeding frenzy. The sheer number of women scuttling out of the woodwork makes me doubt them, unless Tiger has wicked organizational skills — few of the women seem to have been aware of the others, and all of them seem oddly pissed. The did-she-or-didn’t-she is sort of moot, though. Even if the final tally ends up being scaled back to one or two, it’s unlikely that Tiger’s fans (and sponsors) will forgive him for having looked so damned good on paper, and for not actually being that shining beacon of hope.

So if you’re in the need for some quick celebrity, you can go ahead and chalk your name to the list. Or you can join the rest of the Oh-Noes-Brigade and ponder the likelihood of your own marriage surviving if this handsome young all-American and his hot wife can’t make it. Or you can refuse to believe any of it, or you can swallow all of it, or you can help Tiger escape his angry wife by guiding his Escalade through obstacles. I won’t lie, I’m hella good at that last one.