Tiger Woods had his humiliating transgressions played for laughs on the television show Saturday Night Live, which featured the world’s greatest golfer and his wife Elin parodied in a spoof just before midnight.
The humor show also tweaked Woods with four jokes in its own Weekend Update news spoof just nine days after the early morning accident in which Woods crashed a vehicle into a tree and a hydrant outside his Florida mansion.
Speculation had Elin, a Swedish former supermodel, chasing Woods with a golf club, but Woods defended his wife in a statement, denying any violence and saying she was courageous after the crash that sent Woods to the hospital.
The mess led to reports of women who claimed to have affairs with Woods, one producing a phone recording that prompted a statement from Woods apologizing for “sins” and “transgressions” without saying exactly what he did wrong.
The NBC comedy show skit featuring Woods began as a parody of a CNN breaking alert and went to a faux news conference where Woods, played by seventh-year cast member Kenan Thompson, was apologizing with supportive “Elin” at his side.
During the apology, Woods mentions multiple transgressions, which causes his wife to scream “multiple?” and the screen cuts to a new alert saying Woods had been taken back to the hospital again after he “fell down a flight of stairs and threw himself through a plate-glass window.”
“I’ve been really clumsy this week,” Thompson as Woods said, wearing a Woods logo black cap and the red shirt typically worn by Woods in final rounds.
When his cellphone rings, the faux Elin yells “Who is that?” and the screen cuts to another news break, this time saying Woods was hit by his own car.
“Talk about a case of the Mondays,” said “Woods.” “This is all my fault. Believe it or not I ran over myself.”
He also said that “one good thing is I can get rid of this old thing and get a new model,” which angered “Elin” once more and sparked the last news break, this time “Woods” returning to the screen with the club bent over his head.
Woods, as played by Thompson, then read a statement in which messages on the back of the pages to the camera and audience were “Help me” and “She is so strong.” When “Elin” wanted to see the papers, “Woods” ran in fear to end the skit.
But that didn’t end the lampooning of Woods, as more jokes came early Sunday in the news segment.
“Last week Tiger Woods hit a tree and a bunch of ladies fell out,” segment host Seth Meyers said.
After detailing the reports of Woods transgressions, Meyers wondered, “How can anyone say golf isn’t a real sport?”
Citing a report that Woods was offering a US$5 million bonus if Elin would not divorce him, Meyers cracked: “What’s weird is he presented it to her with one of those oversized checks” typically given to golf tournament winners.
Meyers cited the list of sponsors that have said they stand behind Woods, including Nike and Gatorade, and said that proves “that women don’t watch golf.”
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