With the surge of past and present girlfriends now threatening to tarnish Tiger’s image for all time and eternity—the latest liaison to surface is with that White House gate-crashing gal Michaele Salahi—Tiger’s PR team is making one last desperate attempt to put a lid on all the media hysteria. City Weekly has learned that, early tomorrow, Tiger will hold a press conference in front of his bungalow hideaway on South Beach and, with caddy Steve Williams at his side, announce that he is a gay American golfer.
According to Herb Ganny, Tiger’s longtime media adviser, the idea to out Tiger came while a bunch of the guys were sitting around watching TV and Meredith Baxter came on the Today Show and revealed that she was gay.
“It was like a giant light bulb suddenly went off above everybody’s head,” said the irrepressible and perpetually tanned Ganny, who formerly worked as a personal assistant to Paula Abdul. “I just slapped my forehead then and there! We had been wracking our brains for days on how to put the kibosh on all the stories! Just when we thought we had made the latest rumor go away, another one of these collagened cuties would pop up and start playing voice mails or selling sex-texts or whatever the kids call ’em. Let me tell you! It was like whack-a-mole!
“We’d say, ‘Hey, Tiger! How many more of these boob-job babes are going to come out of the woods, pardon my pun?’ He’d say, ‘Hey, how do I know?’ I think Tiger thought all these women were just the same gal, you know? They could all be twins! Anyway, here’s a guy who can remember every hole he’s ever played in his entire life, and he can’t even remember half the gals he’s partied with between rounds?” Herb interrupted our conversation to take a call on his ever-present Bluetooth earpiece. “Lemme get back to you, all right? Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, Ellen wants to talk to him, and even Whoopi, but we think Oprah will be the best venue. No, no, not Larry King! He’ll fall asleep on us, or ask Tiger if he ever knew Rock Hudson. OK, right, talk to you soon. You’re the best, baby.”
Herb turned back to us and flashed a big grin, his teeth the color of a Titleist Pro V1.
“Where was I? Oh, yeah. It was like a light bulb going off. If Meredith Baxter, one of the most beloved moms in television history can step forward and tell America that she’s a lesbian, why can’t Tiger say he’s a gay American golfer? By the way, we learned that trick from that New Jersey governor, McGrady, or McGreedy, or whatever his name was. He had the brilliant idea of calling himself a gay American, which kind of softens the blow, so to speak. You admit that you’re gay, but sort of sneak it in by making it an adjective, with the emphasis on American.
“We figure with Tiger, by saying ‘gay American golfer’, you m a k e the whole thing more indirect, punching up American and golfer. Anyway, we thought, why not take advantage of the change in American attitudes toward gay guys and gals. To use one of Tiger’s favorite words, it’s huge. There’s been a huge change.
“Anyway, we’re working on the scenario right now as we speak. All the pressure is on Tiger to be straight, like all the other golfers. Golfers are all straight, you know, not like football players and some of those NBA fellas. Of course, the LPGA is a whole ‘nother thing. What we’ll have Tiger say is that he did his damndest to be a straight professional athlete, and do exactly what’s expected of them, and that’s to accommodate all the loyal fans, especially female. That’s why all these gals keep popping up. But try as he might, it just wasn’t in his nature to be a big-time athlete and scatter his Maker’s seed throughout the land.
“Steve, by the way, Tiger’s caddy, has been huge on this.
He’s willing to take the fall, so to speak. He’s a tough Kiwi bloke, but he’ll go along with the scenario, which is that after he and Tiger saw that cowboy movie together, they realized that the golfer-caddy bond had developed into something a lot more meaningful.
“And now, all those bozos will stop screaming, ‘In the hole!’ and ‘You’re the man!’” Herb paused. “On second thought, maybe they won’t.”