A long way yet to go before Tiger finally gets out of the rough

FOR 14 minutes yesterday, Tiger Woods captured the world’s attention.

After it was all over, we were left to wonder what all the fuss was about.

All the pious platitudes were never going to atone for the disgraceful and deceitful manner in which he was living his life.

From a golf perspective, the biggest disappointment was that Woods refused to reveal when he would return to the sport. Ted Finchem, the commissioner of the US Tour, was among the select audience at the Association’s headquarters in Ponte Vedra, who paled at learning Woods will not be seen back in action for the foreseeable future. Finchem readily acknowledges his organisation has taken a severe hit since Woods’s disappearance from the scene.

He must have been confident that yesterday’s press conference was called so that he could announce his return in good time to be fully prepared for his tilt at a 15th major championship at Augusta National in six weeks time. Should he remain on the sidelines for both the Masters and the US Open at Pebble Beach in June, could Woods consider a return at the JP McManus International Charity Pro-Am at Adare Manor in Limerick next July?

The close friendship between Woods and McManus is well-known and the world number one has played in each of the last three events and would not want to disappoint the Irish philanthropist.

He could even make an unannounced appearance at the pro-am which takes place a week before the Open Championship at St Andrews, one of Tiger’s favourite venues.

One of the most disconcerting elements of the press conference was Woods’s body language. He looked only a shadow of the self assured individual who has lorded it over the world’s press since he was a youngster. As he apologised to just about everyone he could think of – his wife Elin and family, his mother Tilda (whom he embraced warmly and at some length after his speech), his friends, his fans, his Foundation, his business partners, you searched his face for the slightest sign of a tear or even a mournful sigh.

But on and on he droned with hardly a change of expression and his eyes rarely deviating from his script until you were wishing that he’d get to the point. We’d had enough of how sorry he was, how he had let everyone down, how foolish he had been, how Elin and himself would work this business out for themselves to the exclusion of all else, how much they had to discuss, how she had never struck him or tried to strike him, how he was the only one to blame for this mess, how wrong he was to think that normal rules didn’t apply to him like everybody else, how not even his dedication to Buddhism had prevented him from losing track of what he was taught to believe, etc, etc.

The ultimate anti-climactic moment came when he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – reveal when he might return to the golf course.

After hugging his mother and three or four other attendees at the press conference, Woods disappeared behind a curtain, leaving us to wonder when we might see him again.

And then the post mortems began. Was Tiger Woods really the broken man he appeared to be during his discourse? Was it all an attempt at rebranding the image of the world’s most famous – or should that be infamous – sportsmen?

If anything, his emergence from self imposed exile left more questions than it provided answers.