Tiger Woods Comeback Begins with Staged Photo Op

Tiger Woods, the world’s number one golfer that had one of the most spectacular falls from grace ever known in showbiz, is bound to take the first step of his comeback today, with a press conference in which he’ll apologize about the transgressions in his personal life. When the announcement was made, a photo of Woods was already circulating online – the first in 3 months – which marks the official starting point of his comeback, as TMZ puts it.

Simple logic says that, because of Woods’ protracted absence, whichever paparazzi agency got to take the first photo of him would stand to make a lot of money. This is precisely what he and his team tried to and were successful in avoiding, contacting a photographer from Getty Images to stage a photo op. What this means is that, while the pic is being sold as a paparazzi snap, it is far from that, as everything was well planned in advance.

“It was the holy grail – the most sought after image in the world – but when the first image of Tiger Woods was released through Getty Images yesterday, the move blocked the paparazzi from their million dollar shot. TMZ has checked around with some major paparazzi agencies, who tell us the first picture of Tiger could have scored them more than $1,000,000 in worldwide distribution profits,” TMZ writes of the picture that emerged online yesterday, showing Woods jogging with a male companion.

“But when the image was released through Getty Images – a non-paparazzi, subscription-based photo agency – the value of the photo plummeted... as most major media outlets got the pic essentially for free as part of their deal with Getty. FYI – Just 24 days before the shot was taken, Getty had announced a ‘multi-year’ deal with the PGA, in which both sides touted the move as a ‘strategic partnership.’ Turns out, they were right. We called Getty for comment – but they’re on lockdown,” the media outlet further says.

TMZ was also the first to note as early as yesterday that there was something very “fishy” about the so-called snapshots that started flooding the Internet yesterday. After some digging, the celebrity gossip website, which also doubles as a paparazzi agency, found out that the entire shoot had been staged, with security closing down the entire area to prevent paparazzi from gaining access.