Mother? Wife? Tiger Woods

Last night the couple were holed up in their current home on the gated Florida estate where Woods was injured last Friday after crashing his car, after his wife had allegedly gone for him with a golf club after magazine claims about his adultery.
Significantly, the one other person to whom he has chosen to confide all the details of his current travails is his mother Tida who is said by friends to have been constantly on the phone to her only son from her home 2,500 miles away in California.
Which is an added source of discontent to Elin, sources close to the family told me, because a bitter rift has emerged between the two women which, in part at least, has been responsible for bringing the marriage to breaking point.
In a vivid illustration of the enmity that exists between them, Elin is said to have 'freaked out' when Tiger's Thai-born mother demanded her son build a house for her next to his new mansion.
It was the pushy Tida, 69, who won the day, but not before Elin made her own set of demands.

She is said to have insisted her mother-in-law's new home be constructed on land separated by a stretch of water from the mansion she will occupy with Tiger and their children, daughter Sam, two, and ten-month-old son Charlie.
And sources in the U.S. say that Stockholm-born Elin, who has taken close charge of the building of the new house - due to be completed early next year - has refused to have any involvement in the planning of Tida's accommodation.
'It's well known in the golf world that Tida and Elin don't get on,' says one who has travelled on the pro tour for many years.
'Tida is a formidable women and frightens the wits out of everyone, including her son. Elin is almost equally feisty. Tiger is often piggy-in-the-middle.'

Meanwhile, just to add to the animosity between them, Elin has accused Tida of turning a blind eye to her son's alleged liasons with Miss Uchitel, who is reported to have conducted a clandestine affair with Woods since June.
Crucially, when the golfer and nightclub events manager Miss Uchitel are said to have met up behind his wife's back in Melbourne last month, while Woods was playing in the Australian Masters, his mother was also part of his entourage.

Sources say Woods even joked that Tida, who was raised in poverty close to Bangkok before marrying Woods' black American father Earl, had been 'hammering his credit card' in swish Melbourne restaurants Nobu and Rockpool, while he is said to have been entertaining the well-bred Miss Uchitel in his 35th floor suite of the city's exclusive Crown Towers hotel.
It is, perhaps, an indication of how much Woods is in thrall to his mother - who has taken over the mantle of his mentor since the death of his father three years ago - that after the tournament it was Tida who was flown in her son's private jet back to America.
Tiger, himself, was forced to 'slum it' in the first-class section of an Emirates passenger plane as he headed to another event in Dubai.
The source added: 'Elin is beside herself with anger because she can't believe that her mother-inlaw did not know that Tiger was running round with this other women when it was right under her nose.'
Elin has not been seen with her husband at a golf event for two months. Insiders have also revealed that the temperamental Miss Nordegren, the daughter of a former Swedish cabinet minister, was involved in an embarrassing scene with Woods when he played at the British Open in July.
He was said to have been playing up to his usual world-beating standard at the tournament at Turnberry, Ayrshire, until Elin arrived and demanded to know what he had been up to.
After her arrival, a clearly riled Woods, who at one point flung his club down in disgust after missing yet another shot, missed the halfway cut of a major event for only the second time in his career.
It had been his protective mother Tida who had counselled him against marriage. After Tiger found fame and money as a teenager, she would take calls from the string of hopeful young women phoning their California home and hiss 'gold diggers! gold diggers!'
Later, his parents were accused of demanding her son write a letter to his first girlfriend, High School sweetheart Dina Gravell, to call off their relationship because Tida thought she was distracting Tiger from his game.
As if the fractured relationship between his battling mother and wife is not enough to contend with, the golfer's management team were last night reported to have gone into 'panic mode' over the damage to his multi-million-dollar 'Mr Clean' brand.
Wood's management company IMG were said to be locked in negotiations with a string of corporate sponsors, including Nike, Buick, watch firm Tag Heuer and phone company AT&T, who last year accounted for the bulk of his £66million earnings.
Industry sources say that despite a partial vote of confidence from Gillette - the razor company which pays Woods a reported £12million a year - is considering dumping him from their campaigns.
Jason Maloni, an expert in sports and entertainment marketing based in Washington DC, told me last night: 'Tiger is probably losing money already, and Gillette is his biggest problem. No firm that sells razors wants to be associated with someone who has scratches all over his face.
'He needs his wife to come out and support him publicly. Until she does, the speculation and the damage to his reputation will continue.'
No wonder the repentant Tiger is apparently so willing to cave into the demands of his betrayed wife. It might just be the only way to save his own skin.

 

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