Tiger Woods doesn't owe anyone an explanation

What does Tiger Woods owe us?

What is he, as a public figure, required to divulge to us about the nature of his National Lampoon moment early Friday morning, when he took out a fire hydrant and crashed into a tree while driving his Cadillac SUV out of his driveway?

What do our inquiring minds really need to know about the intent of his golf-club-wielding wife, Elin Nordegren?

The answers? Nothing. Nothing. And nothing.

I don't care if Tiger Woods is the wealthiest athlete on the planet. I don't care if he is the spokesman for everything on our grocers' shelves but beef jerky. I don't care how recognizable he is from Augusta to Zurich, from Australia to Zanzibar.

The hours of wasted television time and the squandered inches of precious newspaper space and the traffic jam of blog reports speculating on the possibilities of a Woods' family feud are ridiculous.

If he and his wife had a "War of the Roses" moment, that's their business. As long as neither party called the police to report a domestic-abuse issue, the question of the health of Tiger Woods' marriage should be of no concern to us.

Four Lakewood police officers were murdered Sunday. That should concern us. President Obama has authorized the deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. That should concern us.

But the state of Tiger Woods' marriage? Please.

Unless Woods is standing over a 15-foot putt on the 18th green at Augusta, while his wife is heckling him and menacingly waving a 5-iron from the gallery, their married life is their news and only their news.

It's a family matter that shouldn't matter to us.

He isn't the star pitcher of a big-league team whose personal problems have affected his performance. In that case, maybe he would owe it to his ticket-buying fans to explain why he is getting lit up early in ballgames. Maybe, in a case like that, he would need to explain his concentration lapses on the mound to his teammates.

But Tiger Woods plays an individual sport. His only true teammate is his grumpy caddie, Steve Williams.

Maybe Woods, who was cited Tuesday for careless driving, owes an explanation to the sponsors who are paying him millions of dollars to hawk everything from razors to automobiles. But that talk should be done in private.

And, I promise you, none of those companies is going to drop Woods because each knows that its competition would pick him up in a Pebble Beach minute.

Woods owes us nothing, but still, he should be pragmatic about all of this.

Because of the 24-hour news cycle, because of the intrusive nature of news reporting in the 21st Century and because he's one of this planet's most celebrated people, he should give himself and his family some peace of mind by facing the nation.

He owes us nothing, but he does owe it to The Tiger Woods Foundation to show up in Thousand Oaks, Calif., this week to host his golf tournament, the Chevron World Classic.

Hundreds of people, many of them volunteers, have worked year-round to put the tournament together to benefit his foundation. Players are coming from around the globe to help raise money.

Woods often talks about the importance of the foundation in his life. He shouldn't allow the embarrassment of this accident to make him suddenly camera-shy and hurt the success of this tournament and the long-term health of his foundation.

He should be there on Wednesday. He should call a news conference. Make it brief. No questions, please. Just give an outline of what happened in the pre-dawn hours of last Friday and give everyone an update on his physical condition.

Then on Thursday, he should pull out a driver and rip his first tee shot about 330 yards down the center of the fairway. And, once again, he should hear the cheers for the only thing that should matter to us: his golf game.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists