There have been a lot of shocking twists and turns in the Tiger Woods story since the shortest drive of his professional career led to the most significant quadruple bogey in the history of golf public relations, but to me by far the most underrated surprise has been related to the expectations for what will happen when Tiger returns at The Masters.

It seems to me that this has the potential to an unmitigated disaster for Tiger (and golf itself) both on and off the scoreboard.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that Tiger picked the perfect place to come back because Augusta National can control the media and the crowds. There is absolutely no doubt that, at first glance, this is obviously true. Media credentials are impossible to get or even transfer (I was once removed from Augusta National by a security guard because my press credential had the wrong name on it; and I was working for the local TV station that annually carries the tournament!). The spectator badges are numbered so that anyone causing a scene would not only be kicked out, but whomever owns that ticket will lose a prized possession forever (it is important to note that practice round tickets are a very different situation, making the publicizing of the time of Tiger’s first practice round on Monday April 5th may potentially as golf’s non lethal equivalent to the newspapers reporting JFK’s Dallas parade path).  .

However, this apparent impenetrable fortress may, like the ancient city of Troy, create a false sense of security that is setting everyone up for an ambush.

First of all, tickets (especially for practice rounds) will still be easily obtainable on the scalping market. Since there is no way to ID everyone with a ticket, this means that anyone with enough money and desire will be able to get within a few feet of Tiger Woods. Does anyone really believe that at least one of Tiger’s mistresses, perhaps with a web site address advertised on a T-shirt hidden under a jacket will not milk this huge event for an extension of their 15 minutes of fame?

For that matter, what is to keep the tabloid press from purchasing a bunch of tickets, hiding cell phone cameras on their person and then using one of the many closed quarters tee boxes to hold their own Tiger Woods “press conference”? With the massive amount of attention that will be focused on this event, it would be possible for these entities to justify almost any expense/risk (especially when the coverage of the first round will be so limited on ESPN that there will be a giant window for potentially “exclusive” footage of “what you didn’t see at the Masters.”) to be part of the story.

Think of it this way, if the media world knew that Sandra Bullock was going to be in an easily accessible place for five consecutive hours where you could legally get within a few feet of her at any given moment by simply paying a few hundred dollars, what would be the chances that every “tabloid” outlet would not be there? Now, divide those long odds by ten (because the Tiger story is exponentially bigger) and you can see that it would seem to be impossible that nothing like this is in the works.

In fact, the challenge of pulling something like this off may actually increase the chances of it happening. If Tiger had returned at the far less prestigious Bay Hill, there wouldn’t have been quite the same power to any acts of subversion. Now, like radio shock jocks Opie and Anthony pulling their infamous sex contest in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, anything at all out of the ordinary is assured of getting an avalanche of attention and every single patron will be one well-placed heckle from being an international news story.

The thing that stuns me most is that it appears that the lords of Augusta National not only don’t seem to fear what will happen when Tiger returns to their hallowed grounds, but it looks as if they have actually embraced this scenario. Now thanks to their racist past there was no way they could have told Tiger to take a pass this year, but they are now setting up a situation where one person’s non golfing antics will completely define their tournament. This goes against virtually everything for which this event has stood. No matter what happens, Tiger Woods will be much bigger than the 2010 Masters. In the past that may have been the case due to his play, but this year it will definitely be because of his scandal.

Even if none of the disruptive scenarios I have outlined actually happen, the event will still be a circus. Most people fail to realize that the famous and overrated Magnolia Lane is only about 300 yards long, meaning the clubhouse is almost within shouting distance of the very commercial Washington Road, which will likely have an atmosphere resembling Mardi Gras.    

 As for Tiger himself, there is certainly a good chance that he will continue to effectively dodge and lie (as he did numerous times in his first interviews) in response to questions from the still largely sycophantic press about why the best player in the world has literally disappeared for five months, but the almost universal optimism about how he will play appears to be at least as delusional as the confidence in Augusta National’s ability to complete control everything else.

 No one knows for sure how Tiger will play, but the notion that he will suddenly emerge from a phone booth and trounce the field after this kind of traumatic layoff when he has only won this tournament once (by half a roll of a Nike golf ball) since the major course renovations, is simply ignorant. When he won the U.S. Open in 2008 on a broken leg after an eight week layoff it was the most remarkable thing I have ever witnessed in sports. If he does the same thing at the Masters with a much longer layoff and with a fractured psyche (far more dangerous to a golfer than any bone) it will dwarf even that amazing accomplishment.

We have learned long ago to never doubt Tiger Woods, but the last five months have given us many reasons to question who he really is. The Tiger Woods we thought we knew is dead. This is Tiger Woods 2.0, and we will have no idea what that version is capable of until at least April 8^th. For my money, Tiger will struggle to make the cut.  

No matter what happens, all of it will be must-see TV, but the chances of it all going according to plan are nonexistent.