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Tiger LeBron and the Anniversary

The Swoosh got it wrong.

Tiger Woods’ first Nike Golf commercial post-Nov. 27, 2009 – you know the one with the grainy black and white imagery and the voice of his father, the late Earl Woods, that was roundly criticized – did little, if anything, to mend his tattered image.

Instead, Woods’ mass media mea culpa went to LeBron James, of all people. It’s simply dubbed “What should I do?” and in the hands of Woods would have likely advanced a healing process, at least publicly, that has been on the tectonic side of slow.

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Tiger Woods will be glad to bid adieu to 2010. (Getty Images)

Imagine Woods gazing into a camera and asking:

Should I admit that I’ve made mistakes?

Should I tell you how much fun we had?

Should I really believe I ruined my legacy?

Should I just sell shoes?

Should I tell you I am not a role model?

Should I accept my role as a villain?

Maybe I should just disappear.

Should I make you laugh?

Should I read you a soulful poem? “Shoot me with your words. You may cut me with your eyes, but still, like air, I rise.”

Or should we just clear the deck and start over?

Should I be who you want me to be?

What should I do?

But maybe that kind of soul searching was too close to the nerve, too deep and private for a public forum. Maybe those were questions he wouldn’t or couldn’t ask himself.

In fairness, jilting a city and betraying a family are two vastly different forms of treachery and bring with them a wildly divergent set of baggage.

At the stroke of midnight on Saturday Woods’ meanest year will mercifully come to a close and few, if any, have so eagerly awaited the turning of a calendar.

There were no victories, few shots to fist pump and little reason to venture out on Tour, and into the spotlight, other than the simple desire to compete.

If everything changed last year on Nov. 27, as many say it did, Saturday’s benchmark is, at the least, a chance to reset.

Competitively he seems to be on the right track. He was 7 under for 15 holes on Monday at the Ryder Cup, posted bookend 68s at the WGC-HSBC Champions, his last chance to get off the Tour victory schneid in 2K10, and played his last six holes at the Australian Masters in 6 under to tie for fourth place and celebrated like he’d collected his fifth green jacket.

But the best player of his generation, perhaps all time, is not content with fits and spurts. Never has been, and Nov. 27 didn’t change that.

Had he played enough rounds to qualify he would have finished 167th in greens in regulation, the lowest of his career by more than 100 spots, 103rd in proximity to the hole and 145th in average distance of putts made, both key stats according to Tour frat brothers who pay attention to such things.

The man who has been charged with righting the competitive ship, however, is encouraged.

“I’m just trying to get the philosophy and the concept which I’ve taken from a collection of fifteen different concepts and what I think is suited to Tiger and what he needs to do,” said Sean Foley, who officially began working with Woods the week before the PGA Championship. “I feel good with the direction he is going, his misses particularly.”

But beyond the scores and statistics the most telling sign Woods is on the right track can be found in his words. Like he did in 1997 with Butch Harmon and 2004 with Hank Haney he has signed on to Foley’s theories with every inch of that imposing frame.

“At the PGA I was wresting with the idea, do I really want to go through another swing change? This would be my fourth one, two with Butch (Harmon), one with Hank (Haney) and now with Sean,” Woods said earlier this month in Australia. “My whole idea is to find the commitment level. I have to believe what I’m doing is the right thing. That’s why I had to make sure this was the road I wanted to go.”

Yet it is Woods’ life away from the manicured world of the PGA Tour that remains clouded and uncertain. His divorce from wife Elin is completed. His tony new digs in south Florida, complete with three putting greens and a full-sized practice tee, are ready for the new bachelor. Yet Woods’ personal recovery remains, as it always has been, a mystery.

“I’m much more balanced and certainly have a more introspective look at myself and where I was and where I wanted to go and how I was raised,” he said in China.

“So trying to understand all of that and trying to become better as a person; I think everyone has at some point in time in their lives tried to do that. It’s not an easy process. But it’s a process in which once you come out the other side, you feel so much better.”

Dr. Phil would probably like what he’s hearing from the world No. 2, but the questions, many of which Nike’s marketing magicians put into James’ teleprompter, remain and very likely unanswered both publicly and privately.

Should I admit that I’ve made mistakes?

Should I tell you how much fun we had?

Should I really believe I ruined my legacy?

Should I just sell shoes?

Should I tell you I am not a role model?

Should I accept my role as a villain?

Maybe I should just disappear.

Or should we just clear the deck and start over?

Should I be who you want me to be?

What should I do?

We drove past the tree and fire hydrant recently, you know the ones adjacent the big house in Isleworth that became ground zero a year ago and marked the public unraveling of an intensely private man. Both are doing well – the fire hydrant new and the tree grounded. A year later, we’re still not sure about Woods.