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Woods distracted by photos

Tiger Woods was hoping to make the news in Ireland this weekend by leading Team USA at the 36th Ryder Cup. Instead, nude photographs wrongly identified to be of his wife, Elin Nordegren, appeared in a local magazine. This is the wrong kind of news for Woods, certainly. Especially at a time like this when he is trying to focus on the Cup matches, in which his career record has not been impressive, at least not by Woods standards, a mere 7-11-2.

The article in the September issue of Dubliner, titled "Ryder Cup Filth for Ireland," printed a fake photograph with Nordegren`s head superimposed on a model. The magazine also linked her photographs to pornography sites on the Internet. Woods was upset by the incident, and opened a press conference, a few days before the Cup begins September 22, by saying: "My wife, yes, she has been a model prior and she did do some bikini photos, but to link her to porn websites and such is unacceptable, and I do not accept that at all. Neither does our team."

Woods added that he and his wife were "very disappointed in how the article was written." The Irish magazine apologized to Woods and the other Ryder Cup players for what it said was inappropriate satire. Woods` agent at IMG, Mark Steinberg, said he was considering whether to file a lawsuit. It seems like the golfer has another challenge, a rather distracting one, besides his golf game.