Oct 9, 2013 3 min read

There is trouble in paradise, is there not? I’m referring to the stories that swirl around Tiger Woods and his automobile accident a week ago – at the end of his own driveway, no less – that now seriously threaten his 5-year marriage to his wife, Elin.

I will leave the sordid details of the troubles at the couple’s $15 million Isleworth, Fla., mansion to the pulp mills, except for the part about Elin, a novice golfer, as I remember it, allegedly chasing him with a golf club just prior to the car crashing into a fire hydrant and a neighbor’s tree.

For an avid golfer like me with quite limited skill, that part about him crashing his car for whatever reasons that are none of my business or yours is fascinating in that for the first time in a 45-year career as a golfer, I finally have something in common with a professional golfer.

I mean, it is heartening to learn that Tiger Woods can’t drive any better than me.

OK, that was a cheap shot, but that’s only one of the many things being said since the troubles at Woodsville (which is not to be confused with the former Woodville State Hospital at Heidelberg, which is also the site of the Nevillewood Golf Club and development).

We really don’t need to know the particulars about him and the Los Angeles cocktail waitress who, she said, joined him for a celebrity sleepover. Nor do we need to know about her personally or the rumored others, if that were proven to be the case.

We need to remind ourselves that even the world’s most famous athlete of his time and arguably the best golfer the sport has ever seen would not be the first to leave the fairway, as it were, or to bogey a marriage. In these times, it seems, celebrity shenanigans are part of basic cable television. That such is nearly the norm among the rich and famous. And the not so rich or famous.

My questions are of the golf variety, however, including: How many swings did Elin take? Put her down for a 4 or a 5? What club did she use – a metal wood or, say, a 5-iron? Which grip does she use – overlapping or interlocking? And, finally, Elin, if asked, would you give Golf Magazine tips on how to beat Tiger? Just asking.

For Tiger, I’d like to know why was he driving a Cadillac Escalade instead of a Buick Enclave (after all, he did those television commercials for Buick)? Where was he heading at 2:30 a.m., to get in line on the first tee for a friendly Saturday morning match with guys (with a $5 Nassau, automatic press, no gimmies, on the side? What would your late father have said about all of this?)

Most important of all for Tiger and Elin, even if they manage to avoid what would surely be the costliest family breakup since General Motors, what about your marriage and those beautiful little children you have together? With work, paradise can be a nice place again.