It looks as though, on Friday, Tiger Woods is going to break the silence that has enveloped him since his SUV broke the fire hydrant. It looks as though this is going to be a five-to-seven minute statement without questions, and that media access will be "limited." Here's how to know who you can trust on this story going forward -- any reporter who willingly accepts these conditions, or abides by them, must be assumed prima facie of having sold out.

Now, there's no doubt that, by their lights, Tiger and his extended marketing family are doing exactly the right thing. Even so, it bespeaks a notion that those folks think that they can go back to the status quo ante, when access to Tiger was the golden coin of the realm, and when that fact alone allowed the golfer and his team to play the media like a violin. If they really believe that, they're dreaming.

To put it gently, it is more than possible these days to write about Tiger without any access to him at all. In fact, it can be argued that more people prefer it that way. (Certainly the interest in the ongoing Enquirer reportage is proof enough of that.) Of course, time was when even writing uncomplimentary things about Tiger from a distance meant that his folks would come along and harsh your mellow for you. Not any more. Right now, Tiger Woods is most in demand as a freak show, not as the greatest golfer who ever lived. He will spend the rest of his life at least partly as a punchline. Ridicule and mockery will attend him always. If, as I believe, he is strong enough not to care, and to get back to playing golf the way only he can play it, then all of this is moot. But to pretend that it isn't the case is to live an illusion that can only crash nastily very soon.