Column: It's Not Always Easy Being Tiger

United States Ryder Cup team member Tiger Woods, attends a press conference at the K Club golf course, Straffan, Ireland, Wednesday Sept. 20, 2006. The Ryder Cup, is scheduled to get underway on Friday Sept. 22.(AP Photo/Peter Morrison) (Peter Morrison - AP)

STRAFFAN, Ireland -- It's not always easy being Tiger Woods. We found that out on a miserable day when the wind was howling, rain was blowing sideways, and it seemed like half the Irish Sea had been dumped on the golf course.

Just the kind of day many in Ireland like to spend comfortably positioned in front of a cozy bar with a pint of Guinness in hand.

Not Woods. The best player in the world always has been more of a water and Gatorade kind of guy, anyway, and the idea of him quaffing a few with the boys in a pub is laughable.

So were the pictures the Dubliner magazine claimed to have found of his wife, but Woods apparently didn't get that joke.

Then again, it's hard to find humor in a magazine when you open it and find links to what were purported to be topless pictures of the woman you love inside.

"Ryder Cup filth for Ireland," the headline crowed.

The pictures, of course, were not of Elin Nordegren. The magazine said as much later when it admitted it was all just in fun, a good way to have a laugh.

Some humor. Probably sounded awfully funny when the magazine's editor and his buddies were planning it down at Blarney's corner pub.

It didn't sound all that funny to Woods, who was so upset he made an early trip to the press tent just to defend his wife.

"My wife, we're in it together. We're a team and we do things as a team and I care about her with all my heart," Woods said.

It was a rare public showing of sentiment by Woods, who guards his private life so jealously it was big news when he went out to dinner with the four American Ryder Cup rookies last month.

He's not the kind of guy who is going to invite a camera crew down to his Florida mansion for a peek into the way he lives. The big events of his life, from his marriage to the funeral of his father, are usually held as far from the prying eye of the press and public as possible.