Tiger Woods' Voicemail Nightmare: America's Newest Tabloid Fodder

This all began innocently enough. A National Enquirer report is hardly gospel, and when rumors swirled last week about Tiger Woods and another woman, nobody gave it much thought. Especially given the other woman’s strident denials, it’s not difficult to overcome a few isolated allegations of infidelity.

But as SB Nation’s golf experts at Waggle Room point out, in the wake of his mysterious car accident Tiger’s quickly becoming a new-age Bill Clinton. With an unmistakable whiff of scandal, the tabloids are now on the hunt for whatever impropriety they can find.

Like a voicemail to an alleged mistress? Yup.

Here’s what was said on the voicemail that’s sweeping the internet:

“Hey, it’s Tiger. I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. Just have it as a number on the voicemail. You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye.”

He sounds jittery throughout—if it is, indeed, Tiger’s voice—and his creaky, hurried pitch is consistent with someone who’s terrified of getting caught cheating on his wife. But more important is that this voicemail surfaced at all.

It’s a sign that he’s dealing with a whole new type of media. Sports journalists care about a subject’s personal life only insofar as it effects the action on the field, or course, in this case. Otherwise, a 24-year-old cocktail waitress is pretty much a non-story. But now, Tiger’s gone and gotten himself involved in the fuzzy margins of American media. Where rule number one is that are absolutely no rules, and a 24-year-old cocktail waitress is the hottest story around.

Against all odds, the most boring athlete in history suddenly finds himself in Clinton-Lohan territory. Huge. Quickly. And oh-so-scandalous.

RELATED: 'Tiger's Big Lie, And The Truth About Us'

UPDATE: Tiger has released a statement in which he admits to "transgressions."