Ryder Cup | No easy Ryder for peeved Woods

STRAFFAN, Ireland — It's not always easy being Tiger Woods. We found that out on a miserable day when the wind was howling, rain was blowing sideways, and it seemed like half the Irish Sea had been dumped on the golf course.

Just the kind of day many in Ireland like to spend comfortably positioned in front of a cozy bar with a pint of Guinness in hand.

Not Woods. The best player in the world always has been more of a water and Gatorade kind of guy, anyway, and the idea of him quaffing a few with the boys in a pub is laughable.

So were the pictures the Dubliner magazine claimed to have found of his wife, but Woods apparently didn't get that joke.

Then again, it's hard to find humor in a magazine when you open it and find links to what were purported to be topless pictures of the woman you love inside.

"Ryder Cup filth for Ireland," the headline crowed.

The pictures, of course, were not of Elin Nordegren. The magazine said as much later when it admitted it was all just in fun, a good way to have a laugh.

It didn't sound all that funny to Woods, who was so upset he made an early trip to the press tent just to defend his wife.

"My wife, we're in it together. We're a team and we do things as a team and I care about her with all my heart," Woods said.

It was a rare public showing of sentiment by Woods, who guards his private life so jealously it was big news when he went out to dinner with the four American Ryder Cup rookies last month.

He's not the kind of guy who is going to invite a camera crew down to his Florida mansion for a peek into the way he lives. The big events of his life, from his marriage to the funeral of his father, are usually held as far from the prying eye of the press and public as possible.

The price of celebrity can sometimes be high. Woods acknowledged it earlier this year when he talked about how it's hard not to be able to go out in public.

Still, running links to what purports to be nude photos of a guy's wife crosses the line, even in a culture obsessed with the famous and beautiful.

But the people at the Dubliner apparently felt the biggest sports event in Ireland's history was too big to let go without making a splash of their own. The magazine didn't stop with Woods' wife, but went on to make comments about the physical attributes of the wives of Chad Campbell, Jim Furyk and David Toms in what it later said was an attempted parody of the saucy tabloids.

"Most American golfers are married to women who cannot keep their clothes on in public," the magazine wrote. "Is it too much to ask that they leave them at home for the Ryder Cup?"

On a day when the weather was so bad players on both teams made only perfunctory appearances on the course, it didn't take long for the great wife expose to become the talk of this Ryder Cup.

Could it get any worse? Yes, and it didn't take long.

Turns out Woods loves the Irish but not their national drink.

"I don't drink Guinness," Woods said.

At least he was honest about it.

Which, come to think of it, is more than can be said about the Dubliner.