Heading Into His Second Year of Professional Life in a Fishbowl, Woods Wants His Private Life to Remain Just That

So, Mr. Tiger Woods, you pick the one that’s harder. Here are your choices:

1. Making a 35-foot putt to win the Masters on a green so fast it needs speed limit signs.

2. Before taking in “Scream 2,” being hounded by autograph-seekers while trying to finish dinner before “Scream 3” comes out.

If there’s a price tag for fame, then Woods is reaching for his wallet. And we already know how big that is. It’s what Mark O’Meara joked about when he said he hoped Woods would never fall off his wallet and hurt his back.

You know, you do a few things like win the Masters by so many shots at Augusta they start thinking about renaming the dogwoods in your honor, you sign contracts for $100 million, you set the PGA Tour record for earnings in your first full year, you’ve got the most recognizable first name since Madonna and that privacy thing disappears more quickly than the burger and fries you just ordered.

It has been, what, three weeks since the final golf event of last year? This must mean that the time to start teeing it up again is now, beginning today in the Mercedes Championships at La Costa, where the defending champion is, yes, Woods . . . not to mention the center of attention. What concerns Woods most is where the attention might naturally lead.

Peter Jacobsen thinks he knows Woods’ dilemma.

“The easiest part of Tiger’s life is the golf on a golf course,” Jacobsen said. “The toughest part is his life off the golf course.”

When Woods talked with reporters Tuesday at La Costa, he was asked if he sometimes got tired of playing golf.

“No, I always wanted to play, but not to deal with all this,” he said. “When I walk inside the ropes, it’s time to play. The work starts when you walk off the course.”

It’s probably a tough sell to a lot of people, the notion that a 22-year-old millionaire global sports megastar has anything to worry about except what color Mercedes to buy or how to stock the fridge in his jet. Woods might even be guilty of making it harder on himself by putting up such a high wall around his personal life. But it’s an issue on which Woods has drawn a line at his doorstep.

“I’m human, just like everybody else,” Woods said.

But not everybody else is the best golfer on the planet, which the PGA Tour will announce Friday when he is named player of the year. By human standards, it was spectacular. Woods won four times in 1997, won the Masters by a record 12 shots and set a PGA Tour record with $2,066,833 in prize money.

He also helped increase interest in golf and boosted the golf television ratings to unprecedented levels. For instance, 8.8 million homes tuned in to the Masters in 1996. That number was 13.7 million for Woods’ victory in 1997.

Woods has his own foundation (Tiger Woods Foundation), his own corporation (Tiger Woods Enterprises) and his own tournament (Tiger Invitational) . . . not to mention the made-for-TV golf tournament called “Tiger & Friends” shown on Christmas Day that featured Woods, Ken Griffey Jr., NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon and actor Chris O’Donnell.

O’Meara is a neighbor of Woods’ at the exclusive Isleworth resort community outside Orlando as well as a golfing partner and fishing buddy. In Woods’ peer group, O’Meara is the closest to Woods even though he’s 19 years older.

“I’m going to play a couple more years, then go caddie for Tiger,” O’Meara said. “Hopefully, he’ll continue to play well so I can continue to lead the style of life I’m accustomed to.”

As for Woods’ style of life, well, it’s private. Some news reports about it have been embarrassing to Woods, possibly because of the lengths he goes to hide it or the lengths the media travel to shed some light on it.

Last summer, a tabloid published a picture of Woods at a Miami nightclub dancing with a woman identified as a former stripper. It was reported that he was dating model Tyra Banks, with whom he sat at a Laker game, and engaged to golfer Kelli Kuehne, both at the same time. And in a GQ story, Woods was reported to have made racial and lesbian jokes. Other than that, it was pretty quiet.

“My overall press has been really good,” Woods said. “However, when I do something bad, it’s controversy, it’s huge. I’ve been made out to be Boy Scout-ish.”

Give that guy a merit badge. There are indications Woods may be learning to deal with it all, especially the tabloids.

“Not too many golfers can say they’ve been on the cover of the Enquirer,” he said.

Last month, Woods’ representatives at International Management Group invited 12 print reporters from newspapers and golf publications to spend a day with Woods at the Bay Hill Club near Orlando, at their own expense, to get to know Woods a little better. No one turned down the offer.

In a spirited round-table discussion, Woods made it clear that his private life was not something he was going to talk about.

“I would like for the public to know me as me, but not know what I do in my personal life,” he said. “It’s hard to do that balance, but that’s what I want.”

Home base for Woods is a condo at Isleworth, but he owns two waterfront lots on which he’s planning to build his own Tigertown home. He’ll have a Ping Pong table for sure, because he loves the game. He’ll have the television stuck on ESPN because he loves “SportsCenter.” He’ll probably have a telephone in every room because he loves telephones.

Woods may actually have the world’s smallest cellular phone, which rings all the time. It might be the buddy that Woods calls “M”--Michael Jordan. Or “CB”--Charles Barkley. Or “Junior”--Griffey. Or it might be Pizza Hut calling back to check his order.

After all, global superstars can be 22 and act like it . . . even though they don’t want you to know much about it.

“I have to say to myself, ‘OK, Tiger, go out and be young,’ ” he said.

Meanwhile, Woods plays golf and learns. He is wary of the pens of autograph seekers and wears dark clothing on pro-am days so ink stains won’t show. He also tries to avoid situations where pens might be shoved dangerously close to his face, which is what happened last year at Phoenix and Pebble Beach.

Jacobsen said he thinks Woods not only needs to act as if he is having more fun on the course, but also to open up more to his fans after he plays.

“He needs to clean up his act on the golf course. . . . He seems like he’s always upset about something,” Jacobsen said. “People are clamoring after him. I don’t envy that. I know he gets tired of it. He just needs to let it happen for a few years and just rise above it.”

The global sports megastar is not a finished product . . . a rich product, but not a finished one. The numbers continue to roll in. When Woods made a trip to Japan for Nike for three days of golf events, a three-day ticket cost $490. The Associated Press reported that Woods was largely responsible for the infusion of some $650 million to the sport of golf.

He has done it all in public too, although Jacobsen reiterated that Woods requires a tuneup in that area.

“He needs to understand that the reason people are buying all those Nike shoes and hats and shirts is because of Tiger Woods, and he needs to sign a few more autographs and flash a few more of those brilliant smiles,” Jacobsen said.

There are a few new things that make Woods smile right now. He said he thinks the golf road will be easier for him in 1998, basically because he has traveled it before. He doesn’t think the media will be as intrusive for the same reason. And off the course, well, let’s just say that Woods looks young enough to be carded at nightclubs.

As for the privacy he cherishes, Woods said he has asked for and received advice on how to handle that issue from such people as Jordan and Arnold Palmer.

“I take into account everything they tell me,” he said. “I might not use it all, but they have a lot more knowledge than I do, and I appreciate it when they pass things along to me. I’ll pass my knowledge on some day to some little kid who’s kicking my butt.”

If that happens, chances are he won’t be able to keep it private for very long.