If the news of Tiger Woods' alleged marital spat early Friday morning was surprising, it wasn't just because the man involved in the car crash is perhaps the best behaved athlete the Western world has ever seen.
Since she turned up on his arm in early 2002, Woods' wife, Elin Nordegren, has been not just a cipher but a consummate match for her husbandclassy and elusive, and from a smart, well-to-do Swedish family.
From the start of their relationship, she's shown as little interest in publicizing her high-profile relationship as her husband, despite tabloid interest that's followed her over the course of their eight-year relationship.
As Sports Illustrated noted when it profiled her in 2004, the year she married Woods: "Even in the insular world of the PGA Tour, [Nordegren] is a shadowy figure, talked about by everyone but close to very few." One golf-world source told the magazine at the time, "She's become like Greta Garbo. When she started dating Tiger, it was like there was an unwritten agreement she wouldn't say anything to anyone. She's still nice, but when you talk to her, you don't get anything out of her."
Amazingly, in this tabloid age, that article is practically the only substantial piece of journalism to appear about her for half a decade.
That might be why one golf-industry acquaintance describes her as such a good match for her husband, at least until last week. And it's part of why this person and others are so confounded by reports that Nordegren may have "gone ghetto" on Woods after allegedly hearing that he was having an affair. Leaving the house in the middle of the night, Woods crashed his car into a tree, sustaining minor injuries. Over the course of the weekend, more details emerged, but little was clear, even after the golf star put out a statement Sunday taking the blame for what happened and insisting that his wife tried to help him.
If this was true, why had a neighbor, and not his wife, called the police? What was she doing with that golf club that smashed the back window of the car? Was she trying to free him from the vehicle? How on earth did this happen?
"You could point to a thousand candidates for a professional athlete to choose from for a wife and she was maybe No. 1," one golf-industry acquaintance tells The Daily Beast.
The person goes on to describe Nordegren as "lovely and intelligent," an "omnipresent" attendee at her husband's matchesat least until the birth of the couple's first child, in 2007who was always there but "never stepped into the spotlight or did anything wacky."
Nordegren didn't even complain publicly when she suffered complications during that pregnancy. She wound up giving birth in the hospital on her own via Caesarean section, while Woods remained on the golf course competing in the U.S. Open.
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Says the source: "I can only speak from their public appearances and very few private ones, but they seemed not to have any kind of conflict.
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