TigerWoods.com Examined By NY Times

In a first page NY Times Sports section story, Richard Sandomir examines all-things-Tiger's-website, from the traffic boost in the last two weeks to nasty reader comments to the relationship between Golf Digest and Tiger Woods.

An intriguing, even unusual, aspect of the site is its editor: Mark Soltau, a respected longtime golf journalist and contributing editor at Golf Digest. It is rare for a journalist to work simultaneously as the editorial overseer of the Web site of the most important player in the sport. To do his job, Soltau gets time with Woods at tournaments that other reporters evidently don’t. Reporters want to be on the inside but rarely get there. Soltau declined to comment on his working relationship with Woods.

Jerry Tarde, the editor in chief of Golf Digest, said he did not consider Soltau’s role a journalistic problem.

“Mark Soltau is a contributing editor to Golf Digest, not a staff writer,” Tarde wrote in an e-mail message. He said Soltau’s work was restricted to Woods’s bylined pieces and the “What’s in my bag?” equipment feature.

“Mark does not write feature articles for the magazine, so I don’t consider his work for TigerWoods.com a conflict,” he wrote.

Woods is listed as a “playing editor” for the magazine, where he has had a longstanding deal.

Tarde said there were no plans to change that relationship in light of the Woods scandal.

If you're Golf Digest, do you keep Tiger on staff?