Karen Heller: Golf's marketing sizzle turns to fizzle

He was the entire package. And like most superbly promoted products, the truth was irrelevant to the sell.

The Tiger odyssey is what happens when an entire industry pins all marketing and dollar-driven hopes largely on a single person. That's a tall order, and a dumb business model.

If Tiger Woods was hooked on reckless behavior and women ultimately prone to talk and boudoir photo ops, golf was hooked on the myth of Tiger.

Tiger is the trouble of golf's making. He was the answer to what the sport lacked. For golf, he rained money. He attracted women, youth. And, as it turns out, youthful women.

Know what the world of golf wanted? Sex. Golf had many things going for it - grace, intensity, landscaping - but sex was not one of them.

Now, golf has plenty of sex and sizzle. Good for golf! Watch the Masters ratings burst through the roof.

Tiger Woods has golf by the tail - by chasing plenty. And what are people doing? Complaining. Moaning, but not in a good way.

"It is not simply the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here; it is the fact that he disappointed all of us, and more importantly our kids and grandkids," said Augusta National chairman and all-around pompous twit Billy Payne. His sermon on the green continued, "Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children."

Please. First there was Augusta's antediluvian Hootie Johnson, who didn't want women as members; now we have the Blowhard.

For decades, golf belonged to the exclusive purview of the past. Its stars were aging, doughy white guys who might be mistaken for insurance adjusters off the fairway. The elite rigor mortis of clubs like Augusta didn't help. Nor did the clothing, especially those jackets the color of chlorophyll. They're sartorial prophylactics.

Enter the Tiger. In his 14 years on the PGA tour, Woods transformed the game with youth, athleticism, ethnic exoticism (for the links), sex appeal. He was the rare golfer who looked like an athlete, not somebody's dad, attracting new fans, even those who rarely watch a round. Many Tiger enthusiasts can't name another player.

Vanity Fair's "The Temptation of Tiger Woods" and the accompanying photo essay of conquests - warning, you may need a bath afterward - reveals a golfer of Olympian talent and abysmal character: nasty, impulsive, duplicitous, skeevy.

He's a high-stakes player - on the green, in Vegas, with women. There's good reason Team Tiger, his phalanx of handlers, kept him removed from the public and press. What you saw on the links was not what you got when he veered off course. Frankly, I preferred the country-ballad mess of a man that's John Daly - four ex-wives, a back nine of bad habits, many shared with Tiger - but always true to his disposition.

Tiger had long lapsed into legend. Earl Woods first put a club in his son's mitts when Tiger was a toddler. An inspired player, Tiger turned pro at age 20, and the money and fans followed. If golf, to say nothing of Nike, made you an icon, you would do it, too. You can work on the character stuff later.

Woods betrayed his wife and family, not fans. People who ought to know better are foolish to believe that talent is synonymous with integrity. It's mighty hard to sell sizzle and hero worship relying on one mercurial, impetuous, brilliant player.

There have been two contrite news conferences, treating Tiger's every word like some presidential proclamation. Last week, Nike unleashed a risible, distasteful ad featuring a silent Woods, accompanied by the voice of his late father. Playing "the daddy death card," Adweek's Barbara Lippert nailed it.

The rub is daddy was no paragon of virtue, either, and the ad makes Tiger look like an actor who has perfected that penitent pout. If he can be paid to do this, to look miserable on cue, who's to say he's contrite at all? Nike has learned nothing. Tiger, too.

Fortunately, there's hope. This Masters offers what golf long needed yet never knew it wanted: Italians, the Molinari brothers and 16-year-old Matteo Manassero. Meanwhile, a plane flew over the course trailing the banner "Tiger: Did you mean bootyism?"

Now golf has humor, too.

This isn't some Greek tragedy or downfall. And what trouble has this really been? If Eliot Spitzer can redeem himself, how hard can it be for Woods? As of Friday, Tiger was playing near the top of the leaderboard, Nike was airing that abysmal ad while, most likely, potential advertisers asked, "Hey, what's in that Tiger for me?" But it would be very wise if golf and sponsors started prominently promoting other players.

Golf wanted sizzle, a larger audience, a hipper crowd. Here's your sex, what's your problem?