Prenups and Tiger Woods -- Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo

Exclusive footage of new playable characters in Tiger Woods PGA '11 has come out. I hear that downloadable content will include different 2:30 AM costumes, a dozen cars to crash besides the Escalade, and a minigame where you have to text a certain number of booty calls before Elin finds your Blackberry. Fun for the whole family.

I'm thinking I'm not the only one suffering from extreme Tiger fatigue. It's tiresome, and I don't plan to blog about it anymore. But the long and short of it is that Tiger is an arrogant moron. As we were preparing for a conference yesterday, I talked to a couple of co-workers about Tiger. These were middle-aged African-American women, smart and opinionated, but based in a certain level of reality that sheltered golf icons seldom experience. "Tiger doesn't know how to cheat." "You let someone else set up your hook-up, you don't send 300 sex texts, cuz you're going to get caught sooner or later." True enough. Tiger's probably got an entourage with enough people to fill an amphitheatre. You'd think one guy could be "Trim Coordinator." Give him one of those Secret Service earpieces, a clipboard, and a strong pimp hand to keep the bitches in line, and send him on his way.

Since the question of whether he cheated has been answered, the next phase of discovery is with whom, where, and with what frequency. Sadly, we'll probably hear whether Tiger's mini-tiger fades to the left, hooks to the right, or needs a ball-washer. Bill Clinton set the celebrity genitalia description bar pretty damn low. Apparently Vivid Video, the gold standard of porno producers, are offering a million dollars for any of Woods' real life part-time paramours to "re-enact" episodes with a Tiger look-a-like. "I'm Tiger Woods," indeed.

Now what got my attention was the disclosure of the haggling over revising the 2005 prenup. According to Gerald Posner at The Daily Beast:

But in light of a string of women coming forward to say they had affairs with Tiger since his marriage, Elin has demanded that the prenup be rewritten, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker reported Wednesday. “The links legend’s spouse is reportedly being paid a hefty seven-figure amount—immediately transferred [sic] into an account she alone controls—to stick with her husband,” Zwecker wrote. “At this point, the couple needed to remain married for 10 years in order for Woods’ wife to collect a splitsville settlement of $20 million. I’m being told that time frame has been shortened—and the dollar amount increased ‘substantially.’”

The lawyer familiar with the couple’s negotiations told The Daily Beast that Tiger also has agreed to shorten the original prenup to seven years from the date of marriage, meaning it will vest in another two. And the revised agreement provides for a staggered schedule of payments spread out over five years that could be worth upward of $75 million. So for Elin to collect $80 million, she’ll need to stay with Tiger another seven years, be a dutiful wife in showing up with him at social events and in public as if they were still the perfect couple, and sign a nondisclosure form that will prevent her from ever telling her story. Even if she lasts only two more years, she’ll still walk away with nearly twice what she was entitled to under the original prenup.

Cha-ching. So basically, it's come down to this for Elin. You can take what's in the Price is Right showcase right now, or wait seven years for the humongous prize behind door number two, or opt out in two years. It's like a minor league baseball contract. In the meantime, smile, shut up, and stay with the kids. Many years back American women took their significant other or each other to that horrible Demi Moore/Woody Harrelson/Robert Redford movie, "Indecent Proposal," where Demi and Woody lost their house, went to Vegas to try to win enough to get it back, didn't, and Robert Redford, the billionaire, offers the two of them a deal: Demi sleeps with Robert, and they get a million bucks. Done and done, with sentimental moralizing, recriminations, and tearful reunions designed to soften up the whorish implications with chick flick estrogen. Cultural garbage, but not unlike the situation here. The marital taxi fare is running, and the longer Elin stays with a lying philanderer who cheated on her while she was eight months pregnant, the more she gets paid. I wonder if the prenup can itemize things like the occasional blowjob. "Subpart 3; subsection 2: Oral to genital contact provided to Mr. Woods, after mutual exchange and signature to a change order form 1014, is entitled to additional recompense for services rendered, the full schedule of sexual services may be referred to in Table 7A." We're all aware of what she's ultimately being paid for, to paraphrase the old witticism, we're simply negotiating the price.

To climb onto the soapbox for a minute, it's exactly these types of situations that make me scratch my head and wonder why there are so many close-minded homophobic douchebags and douchettes who oppose same-sex marriage. This Swedish girl is basically being offered a ton of money to stay in what may become, if it isn't already is, a loveless, miserable, separately lived, gag-ordered sham, and yet, we deny consenting adults who have been in loving relationships, for decades in some cases, a chance to enter into a contractual legal relationship one-millionth as complicated and one-sided as this one. Ridiculous.

Unfortunately, even as most people tire of this, the white hot spotlights will continue to burn brightly. I expect that every skank who even so much as smiled at Tiger will look for a payout, either in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement or from some slimy producer from TMZ, E! or some other media bottom feeder. And who knows if Tiger will learn from this. Will he continue to need to get his ego (and other Tiger-parts) stroked, because his image is irreparably changed in the minds of most, so why not enjoy it at this point? And I think he's probably looking to hit the links sooner than later, because simpering golf sycophants like Jim Nantz will whitewash his wrong-doing, marvel at his ability to fight through adversity, and otherwise tongue-wash him because Wood is a ratings necessity, not an option. A long sordid path awaits....