What happened to our little Tiger cub?

Remember when America was in love with Tiger Woods? Remember how we fawned over those videos of him playing golf at age two on national television? Remember how we marveled when he smoked the field at the Master’s and won by 12 strokes? Remember how amazed we were by the fact that he was the first athlete to make a billion dollars?

What a difference a month makes.

Turns out that Mr. Roboto (you may call him Tiger Woods) has a bit of a wild side. El Tigre has enough mistresses to make even Hugh Hefner blush. I would write the latest number here, but there’s a good chance it would change before I even hit the “publish” button.

But for certain, there have been no less than 10 alleged mistresses so far, including reality TV stars, porn stars, nightclub managers, models and fugitives from the law. Apparently Tiger really likes waitresses, since most of them either were or used to be servers when they, ahem, served him.

E! News also reports that Tiger used to use an escort service where he would drop $30,000 to $40,000 each time he used it. So THAT’S what you do with all that money…

One of those alleged mistresses, Rachel Uchitel, is reportedly negotiating to do a spread in Playboy. If that happens, she would have gone from heartbreaking 9/11 widow to appearing nude in a men's magazine. Some people really make the most of their 15 minutes.

But most of this you probably know. The real key here is that this is all Tiger’s own damn fault. And no, not just because he decided to cheat on his beautiful wife.

If the irritatingly private Tigre had decided to talk to police about his SUV incident, or at least issue a public statement where he made up a good story, perhaps this never would have happened. We still have no idea what really went down at 2:30 a.m. in his gated community in Florida, although it seems likely that he and his wife, Elin, got into a fight and she went all Jack Nicholson on him with a golf club. Good for you, Elin, by the way.

Tiger has always been the most terribly boring athlete on the planet because he never really says anything of value. He gives stock answers to every question, never reveals anything about his private life and only shows emotion when he shanks one on the fairway. El Tigre makes the cliché “take it one game at a time,” seem like a profoundly interesting and original statement.

And the truth is, I am happy that the world is crashing down on Tiger Woods. In fact, I’m downright giddy about it. Because punks like Tiger make my job (to get quotes and write good stories) much harder, and it finally backfired on him.

Imagine that Tiger had released a detailed statement about the incident at his home where he wrecked his SUV. His PR people could have made up a great story – perhaps something along the lines of: I woke up in the middle of the night to get some medicine for one of my kids, who was sick. I fell asleep while behind the wheel and wrecked the car. Elin panicked and started smashing windows to get me out, which woke me up. I’m sorry for the unintended embarrassment this has caused for my family.

Boom. OVER. Everybody thinks Tiger is a just a sweet but bumbling father, and his wife is panicky. He and Elin tell the same story to the police, and in a couple of weeks they do a funny interview with Diane Sawyer, which gets huge ratings. Everybody wins.

But no, Tiger did what he always does. He clammed up and didn’t even talk to police (which wasn’t required by law, but sure did look shady), and the press smelled a rat. When you don’t give reporters answers, they try to find out why.

People started wondering if this was about a story alleging Tiger was unfaithful (in the National Enquirer of all places) that coincidentally ran a few days before the incident. People kept digging, and all of a sudden it was apparent that Tiger might have more mistresses than Major Championships.

But even once the bottom dropped out on El Tigre, he could have been smart about it. He should have done a Kobe Bryant, who sat beside his wife, Vanessa, and admitted to being a philanderer in front of the organized media. Kobe was penitent, held his wife’s hand (despite the fact she probably wanted to strangle him), and later bought Vanessa a $4 million ring. Notice how we don’t talk much about that girl in Colorado these days?

Golf is the most individual of sports, and Tiger has been the reason for all of his successes on the course. But he is also the reason why all of this went horribly, horribly wrong for him. Aside from perhaps costing him his marriage, Tiger may also lose money out of this deal as sponsors flee his sinking ship. Gatorade recently announced it would be dropping its Tiger-themed sports drinks, but the company claims the decision was made months ago. Uh-huh. And I’m sure Brian Kelly has no interest in the Notre Dame job, either, right?

Of course, I can’t say I’m surprised about all of this. What else could you expect from a Stanford alum. On a side note, remind me who has the Axe again?