Tiger Taken To The Woodshed By ESPN's Rick Reilly

"He curses like a pirate and throws his clubs while millions of fans look on. When will the greatest golfer in the world learn to behave like it?"

                                                      ESPN.com

There's no telling how many millions of readers log on to ESPN.com every day. Millions?

ESPN signed up superstar sports writer Rick Reilly last year to a multi-million dollar contract. Nice work if you can get it.

Today, Reilly shows his considerable clout by taking on one of the most powerful men in sports—Tiger Woods.

It's about Tiger's deportment.

We've all seen it and Tiger literally blew a gasket or two at Turnberry last week at the Open Championship and missed the cut in the process.

In his latest entry for ESPN "Coarse Etiquette," Reilly lets Tiger have it with both barrels.

He hits El Tigre in the face with this pie:

"It's disrespectful to the game, disrespectful to those he plays with and disrespectful to the great players who built the game before him. Ever see Jack Nicklaus doing it? Arnold Palmer? When Tom Watson was getting guillotined in that playoff to Stewart Cink, did you see him so much as spit? Only one great player ever threw clubs as a pro—Bobby Jones—and he stopped in his 20s when he realized how spoiled he looked."

Point well made. You can do that when you the 11-time National Sports Writer of the Year.

But it is also so very easy to write this from the safety of one's office. If Reilly really wanted to make a point with Tiger, he'd ask about it at a media session and confront Tiger then and there and ask for him to explain himself.

No one really has the nerve to do that. You see, Tiger can hold a grudge when he wants to. Get on Tiger's bad side and you can forget about ever getting any one-on-one time with him. In fact, very few do, even if they're on his good side.

The great Dan Jenkins, who has covered 200 majors, is perhaps one of the greatest sports writers of all time. Dan says he's still waiting to get a one-on-one with Tiger.

But Reilly is right. We all saw it last week. We all saw Tiger pound his clubs multiple times. He can hear him curse (those mics are close, aren't they?). You can see him brood.

Still, he is Tiger Woods.

Until someone like Arnold Palmer tells him to knock it off, don't look for Tiger to turn angelic anytime soon.