I have to admit, when I heard about the accident over U.S. Thanksgiving weekend involving Tiger Woods, I thought “hmmmm.”  There seemed to be something missing from the story when I first heard it – what was Tiger doing leaving his house at 2:30 am on Thanksgiving, distracted enough to hit a fire hydrant and a tree?

There are lots of rumours out there right now. The thing is, Tiger isn’t talking, so the rumour mill is growing. During an issue, if you don’t give people solid information, they will speculate, discuss and even gossip.

Twitter, Facebook, blogs and mainstream media are all asking the question – what’s the deal? If Tiger was an AHA client, I would recommend telling the truth and being authentic. If it, indeed, was a fight with his wife as is the major rumour out there, then he should say that. He doesn’t need to get into the details, but like it or not, Tiger is one of the world’s biggest celebrities and people are going to talk.

By NOT talking, in my opinion, he is turning this into something bigger. Had he made a statement the next morning saying that he and his wife had quarreled and he had left the house to cool down, there might have been some questions about what they were fighting about, but it would have defused some of the speculation and gossip.

For many of us, it seems logical that you would explain what happened. But I have seen it happen time and time again with smart people – who do have integrity and who usually do the right thing. They pull in and don’t want to explain themselves and it ends up hurting their brand. Tiger, listen to your PR people. Talk to us.