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How Tiger Woods Can Survive the Scandal
By: time.comPosted On: 12/03/2009 2:08 P
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Tiger Woods really needs his wife. And his A game. That's the opinion of experts in the art of getting people through media crises like the one the golf champ faces after his single-car crash led to a multiwoman pileup of infidelity allegations. If Woods can persuade his wife Elin Nordegren not only to stick by him, but also to say in the presence of a large media outlet or two that she has forgiven her imperfect husband and that everyone else should feel free to do likewise, then resurrecting his image is easier than nine holes of putt-putt.
Tiger Woods really needs his wife. And his A game. That's the opinion of experts in the art of getting people through media crises like the one the golf champ faces after his single-car crash led to a multiwoman pileup of infidelity allegations. If Woods can persuade his wife Elin Nordegren not only to stick by him, but also to say in the presence of a large media outlet or two that she has forgiven her imperfect husband and that everyone else should feel free to do likewise, then resurrecting his image is easier than nine holes of putt-putt.
Her being in the room while he makes a statement of contrition (see playbooks by Spitzer, Silda, or Bryant, Vanessa) is a close second.
The quicker this can be done, the better. Woods is uniquely ill suited to being the center of a tabloid whirlwind. He's excruciatingly private, he plays in a conservative, country-club sport, and he and his team have cultivated a personal brand that represents control, discipline and a hair-away-from-perfection. Allegations of numerous mistresses, Las Vegas romps, audio purportedly of his asking a woman to disengage the caller-ID feature from her phone so his wife wouldn't see it, plus a final, belated admission that "I have let my family down," do not gel well with this image.
"What Tiger and his advisers have managed to do so far is make this a much bigger story," says Michael Sitrick, CEO of the crisis-management firm Sitrick & Co. "There's this mind-set that if you hunker down and take the 'high road,' it will go away." The publicist points to Bill and Hillary Clinton as exemplars of the "wife first" approach: once Hillary said it was between Bill and her, the heat went down. "If he can get his wife to support him, I'd pick one print and one broadcast outlet and then never talk about it again."
But Woods is equally ill suited to the kind of kimono-opening demanded by this approach. He has always been prickly with the press about his personal life. So his statements have trickled out piecemeal
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