Tiger's Tale, Day 10: How Gothic Can It Get?

It's Day 10 of the Tiger Woods story. At long last, we may be reaching the wind-up of the Tiger tale. Not the end, mind you, the wind-up. It's only going to get worse.

What began a little over a week ago, on Nov. 27, as a bizarre, middle-of-the-night car crash into a neighbor's tree has flashed forward to this moment, when we, the nation, are gobbling up the daily (no, hourly) comings and goings of Tiger Woods, his wife, Elin, and his ever-growing number of mistresses (nine, depending on who's counting). We're learning, via bulletins on cable news TV, that his mother-in-law, Barbro Holmberg, was rushed to an Orlando-area hospital overnight and released today.

That's not all. That's the surface crud.

We hear, in bits and pieces, that Tiger -- breaking news! -- may have been driving his Cadillac Escalade while under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs. His wife reportedly has fled from their mansion and taken refuge either in a smaller home they own nearby or all the way across the Atlantic in the countryside of Sweden, her homeland. Impossible to believe that Elin has fled to Sweden. There's no way she could've left the United States unnoticed by the media.

So here's where we stand this minute on this story. The world's best golf player, an idol to millions of men and women (though perhaps for different reasons), is witnessing what could be the end of his reign. A few days ago many of us believed this whole thing would blow over like so many tales of cheating celebrities, politicians and athletes. Tiger would come out and face the music, read his apology to the world and his family, with his pretty wife at his side, maybe holding their two children. Not so. The wife has vanished, Tiger is in hiding in his home, his mother-in-law . . . What is she doing there?

We've had tawdry chicks from the start of this Good-Boy-Turns-Bad saga (Washington Post columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson questions his taste in women). Now we may have drugs and alcohol in the mix. We have rumors of millions of dollars being offered to Elin to stay put, to stand by her man, and rumors of hush money offered to his mistresses. At this point, Day 10, we've got to wonder: How can he show his face in public? Doesn't he have any shame? Will he have Nike and Gatorade forevermore? Can genius on the fairways make up for a damaged life?

So we've gone from late-night jokes to snarky comments to discourses on the fall of a hero, the end of a brilliant name brand, the end of a role model and symbol. And Tom Brokaw says this is not news?