A divorce not for the duffers

Gwen Florio

is a former Inquirer staff writer who lives in Missoula, Mont.

Breaking up just got a whole lot harder on your wallet to do.

You already know who's to blame. The same guy who ruined things for golfers.

Used to be a million-dollar purse was what separated the major golf tournaments from, say, the Philadelphia Open.

Then along came Tiger, creating his own weather as it were, payouts growing as his fame grew, his fame growing as his salary grew, all of it adding up to $100 million-plus annually for him and leaving everybody else in the rough.

But $100 million looks like chump change when stacked up against the $750 million his apparently soon-to-be-ex Elin Nordegren reportedly is seeking as a divorce settlement, according to that sterling source, the blogosphere.

Just as Kobe ruined things for the flowers-and-chocolates crowd when he presented his wife, Vanessa, with a $4 million 8-carat purple diamond ring after being charged with rape in Colorado, Woods took the guffaw out of Lew Grizzard's great line:

"I don't think I'll get married again. I'll just find a woman I don't like and give her a house."

A house isn't going to cut it anymore.

B-b-b-but $750 million? As in, almost a b-b-b-billion?

Surely there's an unhappy medium.

We know hell hath no fury, blah blah blah. And surely no woman has been more scorned than Nordegren. Woods took humiliation to the same stratospheric levels as his golf game.

Game, however, being the word in question.

Because when you marry the womanizing superstar, you know the score. Ditto if you're the philandering part of the equation. The standard prenup for the big-bucks crowd is as much about a creepy set of mores as money: Keep it on the down-low, you get to keep your dough.

So enough with the role-playing. Please, no more public apologies from Woods. Just write the check already. Ms. Nordegren, cash the check. Move on. Quickly, please.

Because the faster the curtain falls on this sordid drama, the better. That way, there's still hope for a market correction of sorts for run-of-the-mill marital slices and duck hooks. Whitman's sampler, anyone?