Trietley: Give Tiger some peace

So Tiger Woods crashed his car. Apparently it’s a big deal.

I’m a bad judge on what is… So Tiger Woods crashed his car. Apparently it’s a big deal.

I’m a bad judge on what is newsworthy. When news broke from the Woods camp last weekend, I thought about writing a column on the incident but initially decided, “He just crashed his car. Not a big deal.”

I recant my earlier position.

Here are the known facts. At 2:30 a.m. last Friday, Woods pulled out of his driveway and reportedly drove his car through a hedge, over a fire hydrant and into a tree. His wife Elin smashed the back window of his Cadillac Escalade with a golf club and pulled him from the car.

What ensued was a real-world adaptation of the board game Clue that continued into a second week of play. Every media outlet decided that it was its duty to read into the sketchy details and infer wild theories on what happened.

Where was Woods going in the early hours after Thanksgiving? Why did his wife smash a window with a golf club when doors have been around since the 1850s? Where did the club come from? Was it a Titleist?

By now — I’m led to believe — Woods crashed his car because his many mistresses blocked his view through the windshield, and his hands were tied up bribing them all to keep secret his devious, completely unfounded-but-let’s-talk-about-it-anyway life.

According to reports from ESPN and the Associated Press, Woods did bribe Rachel Uchitel, reportedly his mistress, to cancel a reported press conference where Uchitel would reportedly tell all. The source of all of these reports? Uchitel’s attorney’s daughter.

Oh, you know it’s true. It’s reported.

Woods also reportedly chipped in for eagle on the 13th at Torrey Pines despite his facial lacerations.

Uchitel has publicly denied any affair with Woods since the story broke.

Woods released a statement Wednesday. “No matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be,” Woods wrote, “there is an important and deep principle at stake, which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy.”

You can draw one of two conclusions from this statement. The first conclusion: Leave Woods alone. To be fair, when Woods struggles, he always has trouble driving straight.

(Did somebody already think of that joke? Damn.)

The alternative conclusion: The truth must be really juicy.

In the end, we might never know what occurred. But I know that I don’t care.

If a tree falls in the Woods and there’s no one there to hear it, it won’t make a sound, but feel free to speculate about the tree’s seedy past.

All we have to go on is one victim — Woods — who wants peace, a tree that isn’t talking anytime soon, 911 calls that say nothing and TMZ reports that make you wonder where the secret text message storeroom is located. If I ever crash my car into a tree and TMZ reports on the location of my nudie magazines, let me know, because I haven’t been able to find them for years.

Nobody knows what happened. Well, the people who know what happened are the only people who need to know what happened. While major news outlets question the validity of Uchitel’s secret flight to Australia or read off the details of the Woods family’s prenuptial agreement, turn to The Pitt News for real golf stories:

I bet you didn’t know this. Michelle Wie won her first professional individual tournament on Nov. 15. She finished 13-under at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational. Cool! If Tiger Woods hadn’t crashed his car, maybe we could get some rampant speculation about her return — no, let’s call it imminent return — to the men’s tour.

Strong winds delayed the Australian Open this year at the ocean-side New South Wales Golf Course, but John Daly made an appearance and shot a 3-under 69 Saturday, despite the inclement conditions.

And finally, Y.E. Yang, winner of this year’s PGA Championships, led the Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, California through two rounds — nine shots under par.

Tiger Woods, who hosts the event, did not attend because of an unrelated car accident.