The esteemed golf writer Larry Dorman of the New York Times has had his turn to dip into the 'What will happen?' well of speculation about Tiger's imminent return at next months' Masters (NYT, March 18):

"Ready or not, here Woods comes and marketers will be among those watching closely, looking for any evidence that his appeal to consumers has eroded. Fellow competitors will be evaluating whether his skills have slipped or whether his legendary confidence has been shaken.

''Some will be looking for improved demeanor, including no more club throwing, for which Woods was criticized after hurling his driver at the T.P.C. Boston. Others will be monitoring for off-color language, sometimes picked up by parabolic microphones after errant shots.

"A lot of people are not happy with his behavior on the course," Sutton [Bill Sutton, a sports marketing consultant and professor at the University of Central Florida] said, adding: "People will be watching for all kinds of things. But they mostly will be watching to see whether he can win."

Dorfman [Bob Dorfman, the executive creative director at Baker Street Advertising in San Francisco] agreed. "In these kind of cases the most important thing is winning," he said. "The sooner he can start winning, the sooner advertisers will come back and the fans will forget. We saw it happen with Kobe Bryant."

Put the two different ideas expressed in these quotes together and you get something close to the real import for Tiger's place in the sport of golf of all that has been uncorked since that fabulously symbolic bursting of the hydrant back in November.

On the one hand - the hand that accepts the cheques and trophies; the one that everyone has wanted to shake - it is indisputable that the most important thing for Tiger is winning. Always has been, likely always will be. Without winning Tiger would still just be Eldrick, or else a guy with a very silly nickname.

And winning is what we tune in to watch Tiger do. First we watched him do it against the odds - the skinny black kid in 1994 rolling in the hopelessly implausible sliding birdie on the island green 17th at TPC Sawgrass tripping Trip Kuehne and winning his first US Amateur. Then seemingly but a few inevitable moments later winning the 1997 Masters by 12 - 12! - strokes.

Later we stayed to watch him because the odds had swung so much in his favor. Having seen off every one of his 'peers' in all sorts of blow- for-blow final-round confrontations at Majors and minors he has for most of his career borne perhaps the most difficult handicap in golf - the weight of expectation: The odds quickly came to say said he should win and would win. We knew it of course but, more deliciously, we also knew that he must know it. How and when would that change things?

Many gifted and formidable champions have tended to succumb disproportionately when the scales of expectation tip in their favour, especially when the prize is great. For Tiger though that weight has always seemed to harden his resolve and tip the scales further in his favor. His talents are so formidable they are only outshone by his ability to deploy them when they are most needed and he wants the prize most badly. Exactly when they tend to desert others.

Choose your own cliche to describe the immense golfing achievements of the man. Thousands have been used through the years, and rightly so.

But on the other hand - the hand that lavishes endorsement riches but can suddenly offer a stinging slap or be withdrawn altogether - being a winner, even one as prodigious, prolific and unlikely as Tiger, was not 'enough'. There are all sorts of winners, especially among African-American men. The unique challenge and opportunity - for Tiger and for the golf business - was to create a brand that made sense of - and lots of money from - his apparent lack of context in the world of golf.

In keeping with his breathtaking, almost mythical exploits the brand was not modest in its ambitions. Tiger, we were exhorted by everyone from Accenture to GM, was no less than basically everything the middle-aged, above middle-income white man, and many others as well, wanted to be - or was told he should be - except more so and better. A devoted family man but singly focused, unwavering and in complete control. (The less aspirational Nike version, to give credit where due, sits much more comfortably with the ‘real' Tiger simply as a young and dashing conqueror. It should not surprise that a brand that implores us to "Just do it" has, almost alone, stood by its man when he seems to have wholeheartedly adopted the mantra, seemingly to a fault. Or 14 or so faults.)

The problem with the mythic Tiger brand - the all round great family guy who is utterly focused and in complete control - is that it didn't ever completely stack up even based on what we saw on the golf course, never mind what we have since learned about Tiger off it.

Despite the best efforts of TV network golf direction - not too mention broader golf media, which for years has scratched for its bread and thanks to Tiger now knows not only where it is but exactly how it is buttered - over the past decade or more, it has been impossible to miss the all too graceless, undisciplined and borderline thuggish aspects of Tiger's behaviour as he has deployed his formidable talents.

Think of the cannon-shot expletive, the club slammed into the turf or hurled away, the ferociously berated spectator, the foot stomped into the fairway, the in-your-face war-dance celebration with Steve Williams after a big putt or chip rolls in and, after a crucial missed putt, your choice of (a) the hand or cap slipped over the mouth to foil the lip-readers before an expletive barrage or (b) a disgusted and disdainful hawking spit onto the putting green. The last would be unseemly if by a fast bowler following a refused LBW appeal. How Tiger has escaped fines for this remains a mystery.

A perfect, recent and close to home example of this was Tiger's most recent tournament outing in the Masters at Kingston Heath. After one slightly errant tee shot on Saturday Tiger hurled his driver down so hard into the turf that it bounced high in the air and over the spectators lining the tee three- and four-deep (see main photograph, above). It was an act of such indecorum and savagery that any harbouring remaining myths about Tiger's stature as one of the game's (much less life's) statesmen should surely have dissipated, even before what emerged in following weeks.

Nervous laughter from the gallery, obsequious tip-toeing from the TV commentary and from Tiger a graceless acceptance of the club being handed back to him from behind the ropes as he stalked off the tee without so much as eye contact, never mind anything resembling an apology.

It was, in short, an incident that should have - and perhaps did - appal golf lovers other than this writer right across Australia. Yet it was met with a deafening, acquiescent silence. Why? Because it simply did not sit with the emotional and commercial investment that has been made in Tiger as paragon by sponsors, journalists and everyone else who wants or needs Tiger to be larger than life and not bound by all of its rules. Not even those rules which would surely see a member severely censured if he did the same thing at that very spot a week later in the Saturday comp.

Imagine for a moment if, for instance, John Daly had done the same thing. Hard to believe that he would have escaped being pilloried. Try to imagine also Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson or even a contemporary like Ernie Els perfoming the same petulant, childish stunt. That's right - you can't, and surely that's the point.

Imagine also that instead of sailing 'harmlessly' over the heads of the gallery the driver had bounced up and hit someone in the face, damaging an eye or some such. Then surely it would have been different. But why? Because then the objective fact of Tiger's wanton behaviour would have been inescapable, however much we - and he - would prefer to escape it.

So it should not surprise us that a man who on the golf course has been allowed to get away with behaviour that would have been completely unacceptable, if not unimaginable, in others (even those not held to the lofty standards that the supposed greatest golfer of all time might be expected to uphold) somehow seems not to have questioned his ability do the same off the golf course. A man whose repeated ugly conduct in front for tens of thousands of fans has passed without serious censure for years is not going to be overly troubled by the consequences of leaving potentially devastating text messages in unhelpful places. Until, of course, the objective facts become escapable.

So for Paragon Tiger the contest is lost. Time to shake hands and concede the match. The impossibly complete and perfect image that was crafted for a fiercely competitive young black sportsman who was given license by all the enablers (commercial, media and general public supporters alike) to do what he wanted has been shown to be an utter fraud, no matter what fine personal qualities Tiger may nonetheless have.

The real challenge for Tiger is not re-establishing himself as Paragon Tiger - that circus has left town and it is not coming back - but equally, given his chosen sport is golf, the challenge is not as simple as ‘just winning', especially in light of what has happened to him outside golf.

Kobe Bryant is a gifted basketball player whose alleged transgression - a rape accusation - whilst very serious was ultimately dropped (though in that very American way was followed by a civil suit settled on secret terms) and in any event unlike Tiger's escapades did not sit in stark opposition to a branding edifice of family-centric male perfection.

What matters most is that golf is not basketball (thankfully for both sports) and what makes a golf champion is not just that he wins but how he wins and the way he carries himself along the way. Tiger may yet breeze past Nicklaus's record of 18 majors, as he has already done Watson's eight, but absent a dramatic decorum upgrade in the second act of his career he will never occupy the place either holds in the hearts of those who love the game and yearn for heroes to remind us that golf's treasure is as much in the ‘good walk spoiled' itself as in what may or may not lie at the end.

Tiger's soaring challenge from here is not just to win but to do so with a consistent grace and decorum that dispels the inevitable (and, unfortunately, justifiable) connection that will now be made between an intemperate, unworthy and childish act on the course and what we now know he has been shockingly capable of off the course.

In this challenge, the odds are probably back to evenly balanced. For his sake, and for the sake of the game, let's hope he is up to it.

(Eric Lucas is a 14-handicapper and Tokyo-based member of the BPL community.)