So, how do you think we should act when Tiger returns to our television screens during the holiest week of the entire golf season?

We'll have Ray Charles battling Willie Nelson for the best version of "Georgia On My Mind." We'll have CBS wondering how high it can count when it comes to viewership numbers. We'll have Nike holding its corporate breath. We'll have some old white guy in a green jacket drawling into his microphone, "Ah don think thas a questin tha shood be ast in these confines. Nex puhleez."

And we'll have Tiger Woods at the Masters. This is going to be television like the funeral for Princess Diana or the first walk on the moon. We need John Williams to compose a special overture for the first swing of the club. We need to have a special dip to go along with the freshest Fritos you ever had in your life. We need ice cold beer and if you don't have a recliner, you've got to go get one.

Tiger has decided to play it safe by placing his debut fate into the hands of the same men who won't allow a woman to join their club. In golf they talk about "playing it safe," but this one is so safe that it's ridiculous.

One of the things people say that Tiger needs to do to rehabilitate himself is to loosen up a little bit. Sign some autographs. Shoot the bull a little bit. But instead he has decided to try and control every aspect of his return to golf. He hired Ari Fleischer, for God's sake, to help engineer this event. Fleischer was hired by the Green Bay Packers to help them engineer the fallout from the separation from Brett Favre. Fleischer did such a great job on that one that if I was Tiger I might ask for my money back.

Let me return to the original question. How are we supposed to act toward Tiger now?

Should we forgive and forget and just move on? We could just pretend this never happened and re-wrap ourselves in the glory that used to be Tiger Woods. We can smile when he pumps his fist with a red shirt and black slacks. We can shake our head in wonder over each miracle shot. We can pat each other on the back, knowing that all is once again right in the world.

Or we can acknowledge that this guy is a piece of scum who ought not to be allowed within a mile of any impressionable children, or good looking women or anyplace where families gather. I don't know if you read the text messages that Tiger allegedly sent to his porn star mistress, Jocelyn James. Whoever wrote those is the male version of a slut. I'm all in favor of freedom in the bedroom and I'm in favor of willing couples doing whatever it takes to turn them on and fulfill their desires, as long as nobody gets hurt.

But these text messages are filthy. I mean this is a guy who has a serious screw loose somewhere in his makeup. When you send a text message to a woman you're dating and you write this kind of crap, you better hope she's a porn star. Anybody else might take some serious offense to this kind of stuff.

Like I said, what you do in your bedroom is your business. But when you write messages about choking, spanking and golden showers, the eeeeeew factor goes way, way up. Some of this stuff didn't even make it into the Kama Sutra.

I don't know how I'm going to react. I'd love it if I could forget and forgive. I really would. But there's something about this whole thing that just drives me nuts.

While he was getting married, while he was having two adorable children, while he was housebreaking his cute puppy, he was out putting notches on his bedpost with a rogue gallery of girls who knew all kinds of dirty tricks. Something about that just won't let go.