Tiger Woods may have it as hard as any billionaire could have it, and the criticism isn’t getting any easier.
Just a week away from his return to competitive golf at the Masters, Woods has another woman coming out of the woodwork to talk about the things he did and how he lied about them to everybody, the New York Daily News reports. The catch is, unlike the dozen or so women that have come out in the past few months, Maureen Decker isn’t speaking out about a torrid affair with the golfer.
No, Woods’ former kindergarten teacher has a different beef with the superstar.
Decker was trotted out in front of the cameras by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred to refute a story by Woods that appeared in a 2005 book by Charles Barkley, the golfer’s friend.
"A group of sixth graders tied me to a tree, spray-painted the word 'n—-' on me, and threw rocks at me," the passage goes in Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man? "That was my first day of school. And the teacher really didn't do much of anything."
Decker disputes the truthfulness of the story on a whole, much as she did previously when Woods told the story to Barbara Walters in a 1997 interview. Donald Hill, the school’s principal at the time, also finds the story somewhat suspicious.
"I am asking Tiger for a private and public apology to put my mind at ease and set the record straight," said the 69-year-old Decker at a news conference on Friday.
The teacher also expressed her feelings on Woods and his affairs (at this point, really, who hasn’t?).
"What goes around, comes around," she said. "I feel sorry for … some of those girls."
Decker didn't say much about alleged Woods mistress Joslyn James, but that was expected — Allred represents both the porn star and the kindergarten teacher.
As Woods prepares to resume his career at Augusta National, he only gets more tangled in an alleged web of lies he created over the years. The first tee can’t come soon enough.
