[Bartsie]

Originally Posted by rich76

Tiger was NOT suspended..he took an indefinite, voluntary leave of absence. My own personal guess is that we might see him by the Masters.

There is no doubt that he screwed up....royally. While I agree with Charles Barkley (partially) about pro athletes not being role models for our children....they (the children) look up to and emulate these athletes whether they like it or not. Tiger's image is permanently stained and forever these stories will part of his legacy. Youngsters exposed to these events will be (as am I)disappointed, disillusioned and otherwise disgusted with their hero. He has done more for golf than any other human past or present.He has built a learning center..the likes of which we have never seen before. He spends more of his own money to support that endeavor than any I've heard of to date. The First Tee program all over the world has benefitted from Tiger. While I do not think those charities will suffer dollar-wise........they will suffer some in other ways. The tour purses have jumped 10fold since his appearance on tour and every single card carrying pro can and should thank him regularly for achieving that.

My first reaction (unlike those above that were willing to prosecute and sentence him before all the facts were out) was to feel for his family. I never believed that Tiger would be leaving his house in a hurry at 2:30 in the morning unless something serious was up. I believed (and do to this day) that he left after a bigtime fight with his wife(and who could blame her after reading the article that enquirer rag put out)....and he chose the high road and tried to get out instead of hitting back like all too many men do. Then the 15 min of fame seekers all jumped in....I'm not questioning uchitel or grubbs (even though I think the latter is a scumbag for putting personal business in the street. She, unlike uchitel is getting nothing for opening her larger than life mouth. (you can be sure uchitel got PAID for her discretion). The rest.....I want to see some serious proof if I'm to believe any of them. Either way....I really don't give a flying rat's azz about it. I do believe that personal non-criminal behaviour should remain personal. The media frenzy has been unlike anything I've seen in a very long time....a product of everyone's previous faith in Tiger's impeccable image and the insatiable need to feed on people's misfortunes.. He has some serious soul-searching and repair work to do...and if I were a betting man I'd bet that his marriage is probably over. I'm rooting for them to find a way to mend things but I'm not optimistic.

As far as the Tour and sponsors are concerned.......

IMHO...the Tour will survive but viewership will drop at least 50%...to the die hard core that watches golf no matter what (like me). Those viewers are the ones that sponsors ads are geared to and the fact remains that when Tiger IS playing the viewership jump is bonus to those advertisers. Those companies that sponsoir and pay Tiger have mostly all said that they will not use ads with Tiger in them until he returns. That, in itself is not a big deal as this is a very slow time for golf in general and IMO means little if anything.
Gatorade had already decided to drop Tigers formula BEFORE the big story broke, so any gossip that he's losing sponsors is hooey....it's simply not true. Everything is run by the almighty dollar and you can be sure that those sponsors are quite aware of that. IMHO those decisions will be made after he returns.

edit:
It turns out I was wrong about one of his sponsors....Accenture. I should have guessed they would be first as their entire ad campaign evolved around Tiger....with "integrity" being one of the prominent buzz words they used. Can't say I blame them either, given what's happened.