This Should Be A Non-Story...

Tiger prepped for two 5-minute interviews emphasizing control over honesty, resulting in a whopper of a lie. ("No one knew what was going on or when it was going on.")

Had Tiger answered Kelly Tilghman's question about the role his inner circle played in enabling his off-course antics differently, today's release of Joslyn James' travel arrangement emails wouldn't be a story. This is an answer that I believe would have been more productive:

"Look, I have a lot of very special people around me who are wonderfully loyal. Unfortunately I selfishly dragged a few of them into this but they are in no way responsible for my actions and shouldn't be unfairly brought into the limelight."

This latest example of poor message control is why I believe Tiger's return to golf will be full of more downs than ups, with a little downright ugliness mixed in. He will undoubtedly try to spin the truth in irresponsible ways and at this point, what purpose does that serve?

By trying to protect those around him with a lie that wasn't even hard to prove, he's ultimately going to drag those friends even more into the limelight. And if he's lying about something as simple and obvious as this, how's he going to handle the more difficult question of his relationship with Dr. Anthony Galea?