Let Tiger worry about his Swing, rather than his Swinging

The 'media frenzy' about Tiger Woods' "transgressions" continues, and shows no signs of abating despite his pleas to the contrary. What is odd, however, is the extent of the media vitriol towards a man who had previously maintained a private and (however misplaced this might be) wholesome image - although in this case I think there is an issue of cause-and-effect.

The general tone is unmistakeable - the tabloids can barely disguise their malevolent glee about the matter; they litter their invective with awful puns about golf, e.g. "Tiger scores a Birdie!" and "I bet his wife will be TEEd off". You can imagine employees of The Sun laughing at their 'wit' between bouts of foaming at the mouth at the prospect of tearing a sportsman apart for doing something - well, human.

That is not to say that what Mr Woods did was acceptable. Cheating on your wife with low-rent types and then driving like a madman are, as far as things go, rather unacceptable. And I think Mrs Woods did what many women in similar situations would do - taking a golf club to the SUV, for instance, is almost a cliché in terms of women scorned.

One thing that strikes me as odd - Tiger obviously has a penchant for sleeping with a lot of women in an extra-marital capacity; why did he sign a pre-nuptial agreement? Even Michael Douglas learned that lesson.

Nevertheless, what is clear in this instance is the extent to which the media focus didn't lessen even after, as they say, the jig was up. It is if the media have been keen to find 'dirt' on Woods formerly unblemished character. The fact that he named his yacht Privacy may have raised further tabloid ire, akin to a drop of blood landing in a shark-filled pool. However, I don't believe Woods is guilty of hypocrisy, as such, as his media dealings seemed to have been aimed at making it all about the golf. Now the same newspapers who lavished praise on him for his golfing genuis when he first became famous have turned on him for simply not being newsworthy. Until now.

And make it about the golf, I say, and only the golf. Do not turn a talented man into a national joke or, even worse, tabloid hate figure for a very human weakness. Do not reduce his character to an endless array of bad golfing puns. How can he repair the damage he has caused when the media storm continues, dredging up more floozies eager to make a bit of kiss-and-tell money?

This incident is symptomatic of a wider malaise. Sportsmen are expected to be utterly transparent beings, open in all their dealings. Their sporting achievements are no longer enough - we need to know every detail of their personal lives. If they make a mistake, we condemn them as a whole, yet by rights we should only judge them for their sport skills. When David Beckham had a similar "transgression", he "let us down" - but why? I don't even feel he is responsible to us for his footballing prowess, let alone as some sort of moral guardian. Perhaps I'm being obtuse. Perhaps the Ancient Greeks, too, revelled in gossip and rumour about the participants in the Olympics.

So Woods has let his fans down in a personal capacity, Thierry Henry has done so professionally after handballing in a World Cup play-off... What should we expect next, besides misbehaviour of some sort from Roger Federer? I am, of course, referring to the so-called 'Curse of the Gilette Three'...

We're watching you, Federer.