There's no piling on penalty in golf. Or life. People just keep swinging away, at a person's character, or at a ball. And so every few minutes there's another revelation involving Tiger Woods. Enough already.

Tiger made a mistake. Not crashing his Escalade. Not womanizing. In underestimating what his status is worth in the news business. TMZ? Maureen Dowd? The Times of London? David Letterman? Everybody is smacking him around.

The old moon landings didn't get this much attention. It's the oldest axiom in journalism: Sex sells, particularly when it involves fame and fortune.

Is this the most over-hyped scandal since Clinton and Monica? That at least involved national interest, if not national character. This offers an athlete.

This also offers disillusionment, ours, but haven't we been disillusioned so many times before?

It's Balco times 10. Elin moves out. Tiger was drinking. The lady count is up to eight or nine...or is it 10? Tiger cancels serving as best man at friend's wedding. Tiger problems could cost PGA Tour millions. Elin buys home in Sweden. Doctor says Tiger addicted to drugs and sex. USA Today runs story on why men cheat.

Not even two weeks ago, Tiger Woods was nothing more than a golfer, albeit the best golfer on the globe. Now he's everyone's foil, connected to all that's evil.

Now he's the No. 1 search on Google. Now he's the subject of web sites that, as fellow pro Padraig Harrington conceded, he'd never heard about.

When you thought about Tiger, it was the number of strokes. Now it's the number of jokes. Conan O'Brien: "At last count, there are now nine women claiming to have had an affair with Tiger Woods. So for the first time ever he is four-over par.''

Woods was the subject of Letterman's Top Ten List, to wit, "Top Ten Ways Tiger Woods Can Improve His Image.'' Woods and White House social secretary Desiree Woods, faulted for allowing in the gate-crashers, were the dual subjects of a Maureen Dowd col in the New York Times, "elegant and entitled swans.''

Advice? Wrap the right hand under the club . . . sorry. Nobody's checked with Larry Haney, Tiger's teacher. Only with shrinks and trouble-shooters and marriage counselors.

We got words from a Doctor Pinsky who has a program called "Celebrity Rehab.'' We haven't had any words, other than a brief non-committal sentence, from PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem.

Tiger's the Tour's meal ticket. Already sponsors have been lost because of the recession - Chrysler dropped the Bob Hope Classic; the San Diego tournament no longer has Buick in the name - and if Woods' image and appeal are diminished, the problems will be greater.

There are two undefeated teams in the NFL, Indianapolis and New Orleans. Notre Dame is searching for a football coach. Baseball's winter meetings are underway. But the sports pages and web sites are all about Tiger.

"Tiger Woods really needs his wife. And his A game.'' That from Time magazine. Thanks for the suggestion. Anybody else want to weigh in?

Any more women out there who have shared more than swing thoughts with Tiger? Any more rumors about Elin whacking him with a 3-iron? Any more sports columnists whacking him with criticism?

This is like a Tarantino film, if only slightly less bloody. Here's the plot. Star golfer rams car into fire hydrant and world collapses like in "2012.'' That couldn't happen. Try something more realistic.

Is Tiger swinging a club? Is Tiger planning his schedule? When does he return to golf? The San Diego tournament the end of January? Bay Hill, in Orlando, the middle of March?

"It will be interesting to see how he handles this,'' fellow pro Kenny Perry told the Associated Press about Woods. "This is a totally different knock on him when he gets out there and plays next year.''

A knock on him. A knock on us. If it weren't for our curiosity, there wouldn't be a web site with minute-by-minute updates on Tiger and Elin and all those women with whom Tiger shacked up. It wouldn't be a family tragedy that the tabloids have turned into a soap opera.

A writer in London described Woods as "cowardly'' for not stepping up to explain himself. He's not cowardly, he's celebrity. The big people, male, female, rarely need to give us a reason, whether it's how they landed a role in TV series or landed a 5-iron net to the pin.

They don't have to please a boss. They are the boss. Fore!