This weekend Tiger Woods had a car crash that was definitely embarrassing and definitely not serious (he was the only one hurt, and those injuries were minor enough he got out of the hospital within hours). Frankly, it’s no one’s business. By refusing to discuss it, however, Woods has ensured it is everyone‘s business and will remain so indefinitely. For better or worse, the best way for a celebrity to handle a problem is to acknowledge it as quickly as possible. Look no further than the New York Yankees for proof.

The Yankees boasted three extremely prominent “alleged” users of performance-enhancing drugs: Andy Pettite, Alex Rodriguez, and Roger Clemens. Pettite promptly confessed, insisting “I was not looking for an edge; I was looking to heal.” Forgiveness came almost immediately. Rodriguez also confessed, far less impressively. Yet redemption came to A-Rod as well, as he shrewdly distracted the public from his guilt by publicly making out with Kate Hudson and finally remembering how to hit in October. When the Yankees won the World Series, the two were hailed as heroes with nary an asterisk for past misbehaviors.

Roger Clemens took a different tack. He denied (and continues to deny) any drug use, even as training partner Pettite confessed and Clemens acknowledged PED use by his own wife. He filed a lawsuit against his former trainer (it’s been dismissed) and made a jackass of himself in front of Congress and in front of the entire nation on 60 Minutes. While his career was close to over regardless, he could have probably snuck in another $18.7 million-for-part-of-a-season contract. That didn’t happen. But hey, you can’t put a price on principles.

I have no idea what happened in Tiger Woods’ home that night. But I know if he’d said the next day, “I was having a fight with my wife and I was so mad that I stormed out of the house and got in an accident,” Leno would have told jokes about it for two days and we’d have moved on (even if we suspected Eldrick left out some details). Now we get to keep on speculating, coming up with weirder and weirder potential scenarios. (“I heard he’s a werewolf, and every full moon his wife beats him unconscious with a golf club to stop him from feasting on neighborhood children; this time he just managed to make it to the driveway before she took him down. Also, she was pissed he’s banging a hostess.”)

Talk to us, Tiger. If we can handle John Daly, we can handle this.

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