Guy Corbet offers a view on Friday’s big apology.

Friday afternoon. A strange murmur was going through the office. Some people were congregating around the TV screens. Others had their heads down to meet weekend deadlines, so the broadcast was only coming through in fits and starts. Something big was happening.

What was this though?

Had a monstrous ex-Yugoslavian war criminal finally been bought to book? Was Stephen Hawking announcing some bewildering astronomical discovery? Had the 24 Irish bishops touring the Vatican hired one of Obama’s spin men?

The words weren’t really sticking, but the impressions were coming through thick and fast.

The sins of Satan were visited upon me… I was weak and I repent… there’s a long list of people I’ve let down… and commandments… I’ve flayed myself several times, from head to toe, and covered myself in ashes… human flesh is frail and I too am human… and so it went on… and on. Crikey.

Then it dawned. The line that really stuck: “I’d like to thank my friends at Accenture”.

Ah, the clouds started to part and things were becoming a bit clearer now. When he hugged the woman from Nike, who was sitting next to his mother, everything crystallised.

This was the thing that was trailed on the morning news. Tiger was playing the pussy cat to get his base back on side. Suddenly it was very clear. I think.

Whose brand, whose base?

The interesting question, for me at least, is whose brand and whose base was he appealing to.

Golfers: was this Tiger repenting to restore his reputation among the hundreds of millions of adoring golf lovers, the world over, who are inspired by the genius of one of sport’s greatest-ever talents?

During the bleak months, those fans trudging local golf courses in rain and shine hadn’t stopped dreaming just for an instant that they might fluke just one stroke that he might be content with.

The God-fearing: was this Tiger repenting to restore his reputation among his honest-to-god principled followers, who might have thought he took advantage of pressures that, from George Best onwards, few superstars have managed to handle?

He is, after all, Tiger Woods and for many that explained all and was enough.

A God-fearing American audience was always going to be more disapproving than a British one (while popular culture leads us to believe that any Frenchmen watching might have been downright bemused by all the fuss).

Sponsors: was this Tiger repenting so his corporate sponsors who, having burned him a few months ago for his despicable moral turpitude, needed big acts of attrition to restore him to their mutual commercial glory?

After all, we all miss the comforting familiarity of the “it’s what you do next that counts” posters in most of the airports we go to.

Or did I miss something and was it more muddled than that, somehow?

Oh, to be in the room…

When I see public announcements, I often think about what might have happened in the briefing room beforehand.

“She was, after all… [stage direction: pathos, Tony, pathos]… the… [glance off screen now]… People’s… [hold the camera]… Princess… [wane now, visibly]”. Please.

There’s no room for cynicism. It has to be authentic.

Tiger, his advisors and the corporate sponsors: that’s a room in which I would love to have been a fly on the wall. It was authentic for someone. Truly.

Message to audience: who matters?

I don’t wonder so much about what the focus groups said, as who decided the demographic on which to test the message, and what that demographic was and why it was chosen.

I wonder how many hack golfers were dragged off the municipal greens to be part of those groups.

“I’d like to thank my friends at Accenture”, but they don’t really need my gratitude now for they may have just got their asset back, once a “decent period” has elapsed.

Time will tell.