When searching for ‘Tiger Woods’ on Google it didn’t bring up his official website, but something rather spicy to be precise.

Woods reputation has taken a beating no doubt, and now his announcement about indefinite leave from golf will further make matter worse. Companies and products that Woods endorse are caught sitting ducks. A rough estimates shows an already loss to incur is around $12 billion.

The positive reputation he has worked years to attain now shows above his official website.  Being a celebrity your reputation is always at the crossroads and anything can hit you.  Strangely in Mr. Woods’s case it was a (mysterious) accident.

It may be noted that before the accident Tiger Woods enjoyed 85% positive sentiments on social media. Interestingly a week post-accident it did not plunged to a very low either as a sudden impact.  This was the ideal time to capitalize and minimize the damage, if only Mr. Woods had believed in Reputation Management.

With no proper damage control plan in place it was all expected. Surprisingly the reaction from the Woods clubhouse has been too slow and hazy. Tiger should realize that ‘No press is tantamount to Bad press‘ and he took his own time to clear the air. Meanwhile internet and the social media websites were flooded with more negative comments thus creating its own crisis. Negative comments later jumped to 40% from 15%, while the positive sentiment was at an all time low of 14%.

This whole affair will cost the golfer $100 million a year in endorsement income. Too late for the Tiger to be out of the woods if only he knew- “It takes hundreds of good golf shots to gain confidence, but only one bad one to lose it” -  Jack Nicklaus .

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