Seemingly charmed Tiger has seen better weeks

ORLANDO, Fla. -- It all started last weekend, when Tiger Woods heard a sound that had never before wafted past his ears.

A hearty chorus of boos.

Tiger Woods suffered damage to one of his most important assets -- his face -- in Friday morning's incident. (AP)

Woods was inducted into the Stanford Hall of Fame last weekend and was embraced by a lusty round of verbal abuse from Cal fans at halftime of the annual Big Game. Woods seemed momentarily taken aback, then regained his composure.

The catcalls and pratfalls only got worse from there.

In a 24-hour span that landed Woods on the front of the gossip and metro sections for all the wrong reasons, he was accused of cheating on his wife in a front-page tabloid headline, then crashed his car into a tree a few yards from his Isleworth mansion early Friday morning at 2:25 a.m.

If that's what Thanksgiving is like, give him 364 days of playing alongside Phil Mickelson anytime.

Details from Woods' camp were few, other than to clarify that early reports that he was seriously injured were exaggerated. Woods hit a fire hydrant before he caromed into the tree, suffered facial lacerations, was treated at an Ocoee hospital and released. However, given that the National Enquirer story had hit newsstands hours earlier, it didn't take long for folks to wonder if the crash and story were somehow linked.

After all, we're not talking about his tee shots here. Far as anybody knows, Woods has always driven it straight and avoided the trees when his hands gripped the wheel of an Escalade. As of a couple of years ago, when I researched his motor-vehicle particulars along with those of several other prominent Orlando-area pros, his driving record was practically impeccable.

Yeah, we know what you are thinking.

One of the most skilled sports figures of the past half-century drove his car into a tree at 2 a.m., hours after the Enquirer story?

It will be interesting to see how -- or if -- Woods reacts in the next few days. Three years ago, he quickly lambasted an Irish tabloid report that claimed his wife, Elin, had posed nude during her modeling past. Without prompting and while preparing to play in the Ryder Cup, Woods vehemently denied the story and later received a $183,250 settlement and an apology from the paper.

Nary a peep yet on the Enquirer story. Granted, so-called reputable news-gathering organizations do not react to tabloid fodder as a rule, and the story hit the stands over Thanksgiving weekend, when half the world was at the dinner table, so maybe it's simply a timing issue.

There was no clarification from Woods about the accident account, either. Like where he was headed, what he was doing in a car at that hour on a holiday and how he managed not to miss a fire hydrant that had presumably been in the same spot the entire 10 years he has lived in that abode:

"Tiger Woods was in a minor car accident outside his home last night. He was admitted, treated and released today in good condition. We appreciate very much everyone's thoughts and well wishes," a statement posted on his website said.

That was the extent of it. It was later reported that Elin had used a golf club to shatter the rear window of his Cadillac in order to help extricate him after he hit the tree a few feet from his driveway. The Escalade's speed at impact was apparently low, since airbags did not deploy. He was bleeding from the mouth and semi-conscious when officers arrived, reports said.

Once the Florida Highway Patrol released the news at mid-day Friday that Woods had been treated at a hospital, the story exploded and the Orlando gossip grapevine did what it does best regarding Woods of late -- it began to bear bitter fruit. Sprinkle some supposition over a dollop of innuendo, and viola, you have a full-fledged cell phone talkfest.

So it's been a rough few weeks for the painfully private Woods, whose personal life and relationships have never exactly been an open book. It's not every six-day period that the No. 1 sports figure on the globe gets jeered, lands on the front page of a supermarket tab alongside Oprah, Martha Stewart and Katie and Tom Cruise, then takes a steering wheel in the teeth after he tried to run over a tree.

Maybe the abrasions he suffered Friday morning were as much from embarrassment. It's possible that's all the Thanksgiving episodes were -- careless, clumsy, explainable stuff that will have everybody laughing soon enough.

After all, Woods is set to play next week at the Chevron World Challenge in suburban Los Angeles, an event that he hosts and benefits his charity.

Over the course of the day, the terms relating to the accident, which first described his condition as "serious," were soon downgraded to minor. Maybe once Woods clears the air, the same will be said of one of the worst weeks of his life.