TIGER WOODS LEARNS ALL ABOUT KARMA

When Tiger Woods hit the pin on the 15th hole and watched helplessly as the ball caromed
into the water, my first reaction was, man, how unlucky can you get? A near-perfect shot and
then, boom! The ball ends up in the water. Then I realized that wasn't being unlucky, that was
karma knocking on Tiger's door.

I thought back to two weeks earlier when Tiger won the Bay Hill Invitational. He reclaimed
the number one ranking in the world and appeared to be back on top of it in every phase of his
life.The very next day, Nike ruined the feel good vibe for Tiger when they plastered the ad that
said, "Winning Takes Care of Everything." That just didn't feel right to a lot of people who
were miffed that Tiger would approve such an ad that had one big underlying current. It said
that winning can cover up everything, including being a serial philanderer.

On Friday, with Tiger about to take the outright lead, karma showed up. Could it really have
been anything else? A near perfect pitch to a perfectly manicured green hits a perfectly placed
pin. Instead of bouncing to the right or straight down, it spins back into the water. Seriously?
As I watched Tiger walk to the drop area and then back to where he originally hit it from, I was
wondering if he really thought "winning takes care of everything" at that moment. It sure didn't
look that way.

The next morning, Tiger woke up to a text from his agent, Mark Steinberg, that he needed to
call him ASAP. That ASAP message led to a discussion that Tiger might be DQ'd. Apparently,
the drop Tiger made was an illegal one, which was pointed out by a viewer who somehow
had the direct phone number to Masters officials.

Tiger went to Augusta National to meet with officials, who spared him from a DQ, but slapped
him with a 2-shot penalty. So, instead of getting a four on the 15th hole, Tiger wound up with a snowman, an 8, a triple-bogey. Was that bad luck? No, I think it was karma playing itself out.

Not much went right for Tiger in round three. The man who had so much magic in his putter just
two weeks earlier, couldn't buy a putt, not even a two-footer. On the eighth hole, he missed a near gimme when his ball did a 360 and then some around the hole. Bad luck? Maybe. Karma?
Hmmmm. I don't know.

On Sunday, Tiger made a little bit of a charge to get to 5-under and within three shots of the
lead. But he had to watch as Adam Scott outdueled Angel Cabrera to win the Masters in dramatic fashion. The first man to great Scott after the Aussie sank the winning putt, was Stevie Williams,
the caddie who had been on Tiger's bag for 13 majors before he got pink slipped by Tiger three
years ago.

Was that karma working again? Perhaps.