"After all these months retooling his game, Woods should put a little effort into retooling his personality, too."
/AP's Nancy Armour talks to various PR and image professionals about the new and not-improved Tiger.
"When he was at his height, he was great golfer and had a very likable persona," said Michael Gordon, a principal at Group Gordon Strategic Communications, a corporate and crisis firm in New York. "Both are missing right now."
Woods is hardly the first flawed golfing hero. Arnold Palmer was criticized for smoking. Ben Hogan was considered aloof. John Daly makes soap operas seem dull. And even Woods' boorish antics were overlooked while he piled up wins in record numbers and closed in on Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 majors. If his Sunday run at the Masters was any indication, all will be forgiven if he starts winning again.
But with nary a title in almost 17 months, patience with his tantrums and pouting is wearing thin.
Before the sex scandal, Woods had a Q Score — the measure of likeability among consumers — of 28, second only to Michael Jordan among athletes. Now his Q Score is 14, putting him in the same company as serial problem children Terrell Owens and Randy Moss.
"He was never the most personable athlete out there by any means. He always had that attitude, but it fell by the wayside because he was a champion. That's not the case now," said Henry Schafer, executive vice president of The Q Scores Company. "This is where he's at, and that's what people are going to focus on until he starts winning."