Tiger Faces the Press

As The Masters kicks off this week Tiger Woods makes his return to competitive golf and will meet the press this morning:

This press conference, however, comes with no restrictions.

He won't be reading a script into a camera. He is facing a room full of reporters, who are not limited by time.

It was Augusta National that requested Woods speak on a Monday afternoon to avoid stealing the show from so many other Masters contenders who are to have press conferences on Tuesday.

A Masters official made it clear that Woods isn't running this show, however long it lasts.

"There's always going to be questions," O'Meara said. "But he's made a statement about what he's done. He's admitted his guilt, and now it's time for him to make things right. He'll figure it out. He's pretty tough."

Let me predict right now that some of those in the press corps will have one objective and one objective only - to get an angry response from Tiger. Their questions will be designed to tick him off in hopes that he'll blow up, stomp out, respond with anger...etc. It won't be about golf, or any facts that matter to anyone...just trying to get a reaction they can sell on the evening news.

I'm not in any way trying to excuse his personal behavior - it was reprehensible. However, The Masters is about golf not girlfriends and if I were to counsel Tiger on how to handle this press conference my advice would be very simple: Answer only those questions that deal with golf and politely refuse everything else. Don't get mad, smile a lot, and let the press be the angry ones when their stupid questions are ignored. That will be the easiest way to get through this press conference and probably the quickest, because once the press realizes he's not going to take the bait on their loaded questions they'll quickly run out of things to ask.