Tiger Woods: international man of mistress no master of disguise

There’s a long pause, and then he says: “You know what I think you should do?” And it’s crazy, but in the midst of this lonely, alienating misery and madness, I’m so grateful just to have someone reach out to me that I’m actually ready to listen to a complete stranger. I look across at him, through blurry mascara.

He says: “I think you should widen your stance slightly. At the moment, you’re quite narrow in your address, whereas, if you just open your feet up a bit, you’ll be working from a sturdier platform, and then you’ll really be able to rip it.”

Stopped off at the 7-Eleven on the way home. Broke a heel in the parking lot and was hobbling back to the car clutching my paper sack when the thing I’ve been dreading finally happened.

“I know you,” said a voice. I turned to see a man in his late twenties, early thirties. “I do,” he repeated. “I know you.”

I said: “You don’t.”

“I do,” he said, insistent. “I’d know you anywhere.”

“You wouldn’t,” I said.

“I would,” he said. “You’re Dennis Rodman.”

Had to sign the guy’s chest. He made me put: “Big up — Dennis.”

Then I had to say hello to his mum over his cellphone. “Loved you with the Bulls,” she said.

“Thank you so much,” I said.

“Say hi to Scottie Pippen, next time you see him,” she said.

“I will,” I said.

“You and Madonna should have married,” she said. “You were so right for each other.”

“Maybe,” I said.

Got in the car and wept for 20 minutes.

Wednesday Mark O’Meara’s been amazing, standing by me, giving me this new place of his in the Adirondacks to hide out in. Eight bedrooms, view across the lake, access to a championship-grade, Greg Norman-designed 18-hole course — a beautiful house. Or it will be, when they’ve finished it. I’m not complaining, though. The garage, at least, has its roof on. Most nights I’m asleep as soon as my head hits the bag of cement.

Days are beginning to fall into a routine. While the builders are here, I hide under the floorboards in the utility room and read back issues of Golf Monthly. In the evening, I fix some soup on the Primus and wait for nightfall, when I can go out and play a couple of rounds.

It’s a pretty taxing course, with some significant hazards, not least at night. My game’s holding up, though. This evening, I carded an 82. But that’s including seven lost balls. And it would have been even better if I hadn’t brought that family of bears into play on the 16th.

Feel pretty low tonight. I miss Elin. Also Chantelle, Ushi, Yolanda, Trixalene, Frostette and Bitzy. And, to some extent, Allanah, Misti, Kashmira, Leeonay and Mae Pang. Also, just a little bit, Darlene, Jo’netta, Simone and Yuki.

Thursday Mark drives up to see me, bringing pizza. We go out on to the proposed tennis court, in the moonlight, and chip some balls into a cement mixer. I’m glad to see him, but I’m also distracted and we haven’t been playing long when the whole, damn pitiful mess wells up in me again and I slash one away into the trees.

I’m trembling as I turn to him. “What can I do, Mark?” I say. “Just what the hell can I do?”

Mark says: “You could try choking down on the club a little. That way you’ll maintain slightly more control of the club-head during the down-swing phase and you’ll be less prone to slicing.” Maybe I should grow a beard.

A story of two halves but we only actually heard the one
What did Stephen Horner, the Liverpool supporter, say in his e-mail to Tom Hicks Jr, the now former board member, to earn the already legendary and possibly even era-defining response, “Blow me, f***face”? It’s the great unreported half of the story.

We are told the Liverpool fan sent Hicks Jr a link to an article in the Liverpool Echo, but that alone, surely, wouldn’t be enough to earn you the full “Blow me” treatment from a senior executive. Or would it? Weren’t there two e-mails from Horner to Hicks, in any case — the first earning the reproof “idiot”? How? And why?

Shades of the no-handshake bust-up between Mark Hughes and Arsène Wenger this season. Hughes was happy publicly to tut and shake his head about Wenger’s supposedly poor-spirited refusal to participate in the traditional match-ending ceremonies.

But Hughes never disclosed what he had called Wenger, in the first half, to prompt such disaffection. Again, we heard only half the story, so our moral compasses could spin only uncertainly.

Same applies here. Until the full, unexpurgated Horner/Hicks correspondence is published, we have no means of taking an accurate measure of Hicks Jr’s unconventionally crisp approach to customer relations or of the purse-lipped and prim “how very dare you!” offence taken in response by the Spirit of Shankly brigade.

All arrows lead to fitting tribute for the home of televised darts
A fortnight ago in this space, we noted the disappointing lack of a commemorative plaque on the external wall of the Leeds Irish Centre. (As the original host venue for ITV’s The Indoor League in 1973, this robust working men’s club and vital civic hub can make an unimpeachable claim to be the birthplace of televised darts.) Little did we imagine the storm of passionate feeling our record of this omission would awaken, not only among darts fans but also among people with a keen interest in heritage issues in general.

Accordingly, we now announce a significant campaign to see this historic building, with its immense local and national significance, formally given its due.

Sid Waddell and Dave Lanning, the darts commentators, and Dave Clark, the Sky Sports presenter (himself a son of Yorkshire), have already pledged their support. And with Barry Hearn, the chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation, adding his considerable weight to the nascent pressure group, we are already optimistic about our chances of getting the result that televised darts, and Leeds, deserves.

Attention now turns to Leeds Civic Trust, the controlling body for the city’s Blue Plaque Scheme, which has granted permission for official celebratory signage at more than 100 locations around the city.

The Trust’s “principal criteria” document states that “a sufficient period of time must have elapsed for the subject commemorated to be truly regarded as part of history” and suggests “at least 50 years”. But we note that the refectory at the University of Leeds has also a plaque, commemorating the recording of The Who’s Live at Leeds album in 1970.

(Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey attended the unveiling.) We’ll be citing that as a precedent, to the Trust.

Incidentally, handsomely made from cast aluminium, the plaques are round, 18 inches in diameter and readable from the oche distance of 7ft 9.25in. It’s a perfect synergy, then. But it’s also a matter of historical rectitude. Our slogan is “Back the Plaque”. Join us.