Nike's decision to stand firmly beside Tiger Woods while others like Accenture and Gillette move away should come as no surprise.

Tiger Woods has helped Nike build their brand in the competitive golf equipment sector.

Unlike Woods's tie-up with Accenture, which comes in the form of a comprehensive advertising campaign, Nike's deal with the world number one pretty much carries their entire investment in the golf equipment market. He is their golf industry all in one.

When I interviewed Nike Golf President Bob Wood in 2007 and discussed the relationship with Tiger on the back of another seven-year-deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars, here's how he summed it up:

"[When] you go back to the beginning. We had made shoes and some apparel for about 12 years before we signed Tiger. But I can pretty much say today and I've said it to him, I don't think we'd be in the golf business if it wasn't for Tiger," he explained.

You can see why Nike Chairman Phil Knight was on the front foot on Monday backing their prized asset and indeed hoping the scandal surrounding his off-course movements prove to be a “blip.”

"I think he has been really great. When his career is over, you'll look back on these indiscretions as a minor blip, but the media is making a big deal out of it right now," he said.

It’s not just right now that everything to do with Tiger is a “big deal.” When you are the biggest marketing tool the game has ever had - Woods time as a professional has seen the USPGA Tour prize money grow from $80 million annually to this year's total of $280 million - then the risk of losing him becomes a massive deal.

When he stepped away from the game to recover from knee surgery there was not so much panic but real concern for the health of everybody involved in the industry, not just Nike. Interest in the game fell sharply, especially on U.S. television where numbers dropped by as much as 60 per cent.

Nike’s decision to enter the challenging equipment market about seven years ago, to go head-to-head with established brands like MacGregor, Titleist, Callaway and Cobra came with spending hundreds of millions of dollars on research and development, design and distribution.

Tiger was key, and still is, to their marketing because he brought not just exposure for the brand but credibility to the design of the clubs and balls. “Sometimes you get asked 'how much do you sell because of Tiger?' and it's like I just sort of attribute us being as serious as we are and as important as we are to the relationship we have with him,” Bob Wood said to me in 2007.

“It's kind of a fact of life at Nike that when you have somebody that is that important, when you consider yourself a product company and a sports company, you're making product…you know we make the stuff he makes his living with. And we can't make bad product.”

By the time Tiger comes back to playing he will more than likely be still world number one so it will take a lot more than a few personal demons to scare Nike away from Tiger Woods with so much on the line.

It’s official. Nothing surprises me in sport. If even half of the lurid kiss-and-tell tales are covered by Tiger’s admission of “infidelity”, then nothing is sacred.

Tiger Woods' once seemingly flawless image has taken a fearful hammering in recent weeks.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to moralize. Not least of all because I can’t begin to understand the temptations routinely placed before a man who not only dominates his chosen sport, but IS his chosen sport. What dumbfounds me is that a guy who seemed to be the ultimate control freak in terms of his game and public image can have made such a huge error of judgment.

I’ve met Tiger several times, and, like any journalist who’s tried to extract a pithy quote from him, I realized I was only getting the tip of the iceberg. What I didn’t realize was that what lay beneath his guarded exterior was not depth and maturity, but a naive, duplicitous character who was so much less than the sum of his corporate parts.

That said, his most recent statement about needing to take a break from golf for what he called “personal healing” and the chance to become “a better husband, father, and person” at least suggests that Tiger has at last stopped fooling himself as well as the rest of us, and is prepared to seek the man we believed him to be.

Whether that’s too late to save his marriage is not for me to speculate. But, in my opinion, it’s certainly too late to salvage his image as a sporting icon. Rightly or wrongly, we expect our heroes to be role models. And even though there’s a list as long as a fairway of men and women who’ve failed to live up to that ideal, we persist in creating demi-gods out of people whose only real obligation is to be good athletes.

Hence, Tiger was on a pedestal, perhaps the highest one of them all. And, having embraced that role, I don’t believe this perfect storm of controversy will allow him to erase the indelible stain it's created. He's fallen from way too high.

And, of course, that’s a shock and a shame when speaking of a man who has sought and achieved perfection throughout his career. Great champion, flawed individual - certainly not the legacy Tiger Woods expected to leave.

The daily revelations about Tiger Woods' personal life have been like gold dust for media outlets around the world, the salacious speculation proving too sensational for any reader to be without reaction or thirst to find out more. From disgust and disbelief to sympathy and support, as details of the golfer's misdeeds continue to unravel it is hard not to have an opinion on the transgressions of the tarnished Tiger.

Will the tarnishing of Tiger Woods affect his bid to overhaul Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 Majors?.

However, a more pertinent opinion for golf fans might be how the events of the last few weeks will affect the performance, and ultimately the legacy, of a player who from the start of his illustrious career has been tipped to become the greatest golfer to ever grace the game.

Such status would not be confirmed by conjecture, but hard statistics. The 33-year-old American, since claiming his first Major in 1997, has racked up an amazing 14 titles, winning in a manner that has drawn countless new fans to the game.

His current standing is just four short of the overall record of 18 Major tournament victories set by Jack Nicklaus. Nicklaus retired in 2005 aged 65 - the potential for Tiger, whose career is in its infancy by comparison, to not only match Nicklaus but to surpass the great man's mark, is there for all to see.

Tiger's ascension to greatness was widely assumed a foregone conclusion, but given the ferocious nature of the current media storm, who is to say what kind of player will emerge back onto the greens?

Sure, Woods has shown his unrivaled caliber for competing under pressure before, but now the intensity of the media glare on the greens is matched in the realm of his private life too. Extreme focus and mental strength will be required for such scrutiny to not affect the man, let alone the player putting for prizes in front of an audience of millions.

The pre and post-round interviews, so long a stroll-in-the-park for the media-savvy Woods, now look a daunting prospect; a minefield of loaded questions primed to further damage his already battle-scarred image. Will Woods be able to keep a clear mind while playing in the knowledge that competition means more questions?

How will the crowd react? Will Woods ever be able to play on a golf course again without distracting comments from the galleries that surround his place of work? If his performance dips on the course how many of the brands associated with him will want to weather his off-course problems?

How Woods manages his comeback will be fascinating to watch, but only time will tell whether the world's best golfer has hampered his own bid to become the greatest ever, in a more emphatic way than any of his golfing rivals could have delivered.

Tiger and his people have been masterful in keeping his private life well away from the media glare.

But given what has emerged over the past week it’s fair game now that his life outside of golf will come under closer scrutiny. The fact that he chooses to confess his sins and transgressions behind the curtain of his web site is quite frankly pretty weak.

Bryan Hyland hit stardom in 1962 with his hit romantic single "Sealed with a Kiss" and I was wondering whether Tiger Woods might want to release his own version: “Sealed with a Crash.”

Tiger Woods and wife Elin in happier times.

Wow! did he seal his fate when he drove his SUV into a tree and fire hydrant in front of his home in the earlier hours of the morning last Friday.

The kiss-and-tell stories that have emerged after the mysterious circumstances leading up to the crash have taken many by surprise and whipped up a media storm.

The perceived rock-solid surroundings of everything to do with Tiger have been shaken to the very foundations, the man who was a model of control has become a character of chaos.

That's one of the main reasons why there is such intrigue and interest in the world’s most recognizable and yet private sportsman.

The confession of transgressions – see even the lyrics would rhyme for Tiger’s tune – and letting his family down have certainly damaged his image for ever.

Pro golfer Jesper Parnevik has been the most outspoken yet and he would be for good reason. Parnevik introduced Tiger to Elin Nordegren when she was a nanny for the Swedish Parnevik family.

"I really feel sorry for Elin, since me and my wife were at fault for hooking her up with him," said Parnevik.

"We probably thought he was a better guy than he is. I would probably need to apologize to her and hope she uses a driver next time instead of a three-iron."

Like most of the story, I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions in relation to Parnevik’s reference to a driver.

The Swedes take great pride in putting the family unit at the core of their culture; it’s something we have covered on Living Golf extensively. So you could imagine that when Tiger leaves everyone to draw their own conclusions when he admits to “letting his family down” Parnevik had a couple of good reasons to hit boiling point.

I should imagine at some point there will be a well choreographed interview with Tiger when he and Elin decide it’s time to talk about the controversy.

Until then Tiger will have to hide from the firestorm and plan his next comeback tournament appearance. Could you imagine the media frenzy that will surround that?

Tiger has done a lot of rebuilding over his career – from his swing to the strength in his knee after an operation. On every occasion his game has suffered but he has managed to come back stronger and a better player.

This time he’ll need to convince his family, sponsors and spectators that when he comes-back he is a better person and the crash didn’t seal the end of his value to the game. That song would not be a good one for golf right now.

The news that Tiger Woods crashed his car has caused shock around the world - the act seemingly so inconceivable for a man who has historically demonstrated such power of control as a driver. But surely it is unfair to expect perfection both on and off the golf course?

The intrigue generated by a figure, so famed for inch-perfect precision of movement, driving an SUV into a fire hydrant and then a tree has proved a powerful draw to global consumers of news; initially through fear that an iconic figure of our times had been seriously hurt, then through curiosity that the machine-like forger of fortune had revealed himself as a human capable of mistake after all.

Woods is a living legend whose track record at times defies belief. Since turning professional in 1996, the Floridian has dominated his sport so comprehensively that his legend has transcended the discipline of fairways and greens to make him one of the most famous men on the planet.

It's not just his sporting achievements that set him apart - at just 33-years-old his record of 14 Major-wins leaves him just four short of the all-time record set by Jack Nicklaus - it is also the manner of his victories and the public persona that has been built around such success.

So appealing is his image to corporate association that he has become the biggest-earning sportsman on the planet, bringing in an annual estimated income of $110 million.

There are fairy-tales and there's the Tiger tale, and up to the point Woods drove his vehicle from the road, the latter modern-day fable had proved more compelling. So the illusion of perfection has been shattered - but is this a bad thing, and does it reduce the power of Woods' story? Well, no.

The image of Woods, like any, is a projection and not a reality; a persona kept clean and free of controversy to maximize the revenue-generating potential of a legendary sporting talent. In many ways, you can't see the Woods for the artificial trees.

So the contrived image has been cracked, but what human - especially one under such pressure to deliver - could have upheld the perfect picture for as long? And is it a surprise that something different lies underneath?

Whatever the cause behind the crash, Woods has at last shown he's a mere mortal who, though blessed with supreme talent, has personal ups-and-downs like the rest of us.

The story may have developments yet but the remarkable record of Tiger's accomplishments will go down in history regardless of his less-than-impressive track-record with Thanksgiving transportation.

Lee Westwood is almost in the veteran stage of his career, having been on tour for 16 years and experienced the game at all levels.

Westwood celebrates with suitable body language after a tour-de-force of intimidation at the Dubai Championship.

His round on Sunday to win the Dubai World Championship was one of the best I have ever seen from a professional and his persona all week spoke volumes of where his game is right now.

He has learnt so much over the roller coaster years. One of the keys to success that he has unlocked and so many find hard to grip is the ability to intimidate. Ali, Jordan and Schumacher come to mind as great examples.

If you are at the peak of your game, stand tall, impress on others your advantage and watch as the opposition crumble into submission.

Tiger is the finest example on the planet at the moment and he uses his presence in every tournament. Simply put, Tiger’s expressions say something like this: “I’m the best. You want me come get me if you think you are good enough.”

It doesn’t make the whole field go weak at the knees but some do, and that is a handy advantage to have before you even make to the first tee.

That’s exactly how Westwood carried himself this week and he knew it was working when Race to Dubai leader at the time Rory McIllroy finished his opening round with Westwood and declared: “I couldn’t wait to get away from him.”

It referred to just how well Westwood was playing but it was a compliment that showed McIllroy’s hand.

“He should never has said that and he will learn from it. You never give away that fear factor,” Westwood said.

It meant that Westwood’s intimidatory approach was working and he had the measure of his 20-year-old stable mate after day one when McIlroy was the man to catch.

The Englishman says McIllroy has some weaknesses in his game and I think he was not really referring entirely to his ability on course but some things he needs to learn when speaking publicly and the mind games seasoned pros play with the media at their disposal. He would do well to learn from Tiger the master.

It was a good lesson for the young Northern Irishman before he heads to the lions den that is the US PGA Tour next year and Westwood’s brutal assessment was aimed to help McIllroy not humiliate him.

Westwood just needs to bottle his approach over the holiday period and unload it next April at the Masters in Augusta. He may struggle to intimidate Tiger, in fact no one can, but the 36-year-old at least has an extra club in his bag that the rest of the field won’t have – it’s called intimidation.

Tiger Woods made a brief appearance in Dubai this week, not for the Dubai World Championship, but to inspect his course which has four completed holes.

Lee Westwood could overhaul Rory McIlroy in the Race to Dubai standings.

Its construction is on hold for the moment.

I wonder what discussions took place. It was very much an under-the-radar visit on his way home from winning the Australian Masters and I only found out from some players and agents I know quite well.

He’s gone home now so we can all focus on the season-ender for the European Tour and the sprint to grab the loot in the $15 million Race to Dubai.

I hosted the pro-am prize giving and opening celebration at the Atlantis on Tuesday night where all the players and their families attended.

They are all in a great spirits as they love coming here and making the top 60 to qualify for the richest event must be an awesome feeling.

The facilities around the course for the players and public are excellent, even if on the way out here the course appears from a landscape covered with ugly construction sites.

Lee Westwood, who has reached number five in the world after collecting a bucket of top ten finishes, is my pick to win the tournament and thus overhaul Rory McIlroy in the Race to Dubai standings and collect the $1.5 million bonus.

Lee’s only won once this year but I think we are going to see him break through with a major next year because he’s getting back to his best after months of hard work in the gym and on the practice range.

It’ll be a fitting finale if Lee and Rory battle it out to win the Race to Dubai as they have been the most consistent in Europe all season.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that Rory is only 20-years-old because he carries himself as if he has been on tour for 10 years instead of only being in his second.

His level of maturity is part of the reason why he copes so well with the pressure of competing at this level and the growing of expectation of him from the public and the media.

It’s been a long year for all the players like Rory and the organizers of the Dubai World Championship so I hope we get an exciting finish come Sunday.

I am a Melbourne boy at heart - the southern Australian city was where I as born and learned to play golf.

Tiger's appearance in the Australian Masters is rivalling the Melbourne Cup in its sporting significance for the locals.

And like thousands of Melbournians I am thrilled that Tiger Woods is paying a visit to play in the Australian Masters. Sadly I am writing this from London and not from the media center at the course but I am still excited for Australian golf fans.

There will be thousands more spectators paying a visit to the magnificent Kingston Heath just to catch a glimpse of the world number one in action and many more watching on TV.

He hasn’t paid a visit down under for 11 years and he has achieved a lot since then and is now the biggest sports star on the planet.

He brings local and global attention like no other sportsperson and arguably movie star - remember he makes appearances all week and not just a one off on the red carpet.

With that in mind, it will prove to be a great investment by the Victorian Government and some corporate sponsors to pay Tiger’s $3m appearance fee.

My father is the Managing Editor for Rupert Murdoch’s Herald and Weekly times in Melbourne and he says that Tiger is bringing just as much excitement to the city as the Melbourne Cup horse race –- and that’s a big statement of interest in Tiger.

Nothing has ever come close to overshadowing the adrenalin surrounding the Melbourne Cup!

It also means those who don’t really follow golf are interested too.

But horse racing is much bigger in Australia right now than golf and hopefully Tiger will help spark the interest in the sport like Greg Norman did during his heyday.

The top prize for winning the Masters is just AUS$270,000 ($250,000) - part of the reason why top global pros don’t make the long journey down under for the event.

It seems odd that one player is getting 12 times the money of the winner’s cheque for just showing up but that debate is for another time if you ask me.

While Australia doesn’t have a Shark to boost the game it will have to settle for a pricey Tiger.

There was a time when Tiger Woods, by comparison in the build-up to his appearance in stroke play events, never really rated a mention as a big threat in the Ryder Cup –- his performance was always below par in team events.

Tiger Woods finally became a team player in the Presidents Cup.

The discussion was mostly about why he hadn’t clicked in the team format.

Not anymore! He whacked the Internationals in the Presidents Cup by pocketing maximum points – or going 5 and O as they say at the bar in the clubhouse.

I was at a Ryder Cup "Year to Go" function in October at the Celtic Manor where European captain Colin Montgomerie and USA captain Corey Paven shared some time together to asses the course.

They spoke a day after the USA retained the Presidents Cup and of course Tiger’s name came up.

“Yeah that’s great news for us that he’s finally worked out the team game,” Monty said with a wry smile.

“It’s not a good thought when you know that they have to get 14 and a half points to win and Tiger already has 5 in the bag before you tee off.”

You might take that as a defeatist attitude but I think Monty will be happy to let everyone focus on talking Tiger up, while I don’t think he’ll be too concerned for several reasons.

Even if Tiger is in top form the circumstances at the Celtic Manor will be vastly different than the set up in San Francisco for the Presidents Cup.

The obvious is the crowd – we know it will be in favor of Europe, that’s a big factor on its own. From what I have seen the layout of the Celtic Manor will make for a cauldron atmosphere because of the elevation around various holes. The crowd will have a bigger hand in this result than other European Ryder Cup venues.

Throw in more variables like many European players knowing the Celtic Manor course as its featured as a venue for the Wales Open before.

And then throw in a dose of some Welsh weather. In October next year it will be cold, often very cold and probably wet, not something US players generally deal with or like a lot.

It takes a lot to tame Tiger, Monty knows that, but he also knows he’s got a few more things going in his favour being on home soil.

Phil Mickelson has thrown down one big marker. Tiger Woods may have wrapped up the overall Fed- Ex Cup title despite failing to win the PGA's Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta but it was his fellow-American who in my view richly deserves a fair few plaudits himself.

Phil Mickelson winning the PGA's Tour Championship at the weekend.

"Lefty", as he is known, shot a sizzling 65, five shots better than Woods' 70 to come from four shots back going into the final round to leave all trailing in his wake. And that includes Tiger himself who was left in second place three shots adrift.

Mickelson has always been a popular figure and the legions that follow his every move on the course will have been delighted with this showing. And like the man himself, they are already looking forward to next season with more than a keen sense of anticipation.

At his closing press conference, Tiger spoke of how he welcomes a strong challenge from a freshly invigorated Mickelson next season saying his compatriot has always had the talent to make life difficult for anyone. By the looks of it, Phil too is relishing getting going in 2010.

In my view, he must wish this season was just starting rather than ending. He turned to former player and two-time major winner Dave Stockton recently for a couple of days in San Diego, and together the pair worked on his putting techniques.

It clearly paid off with Mickelson crediting Stockton for his red-hot streak on the greens these past few days.

His last three rounds at East Lake saw him shoot 67, 66 and then that 65. Confidence soared with the left- hander boldly declaring he felt he could hold putts of almost any length! And judging by his performance Sunday, he wasn't far wrong!

Mickelson spoke of how much fun he had at the Tour Championship. And who would begrudge him that after the year he has had? Having to deal with the shock news both his wife and his mother were to undergo treatment for breast cancer treatment led to him pulling out of a number of events in 2009 so it was an obviously emotional Mickelson who checked out of Atlanta.

There is now over six months until the next major swings into action. That will be in April at the Masters and you can bet that Mickelson is alreading champing at the bit to get started. And if that putter is behaving itself, Tiger and co have plenty to be worried about!