I was scouting quasi-foreign mustache cultures in Puerto Rico during the Thanksgiving week when news broke of Tiger Woods' accident in front of his home near Orlando. I'm happy to report it was just as pervasive in the Caribbean as I found it to be in the Continental U.S. upon my return.

Since then, musings on what happened and why have been rampant and ugly:

• Was he drunk? Seems not.


• Why was he colliding with a fire hydrant and neighbor's tree at 2:30 a.m.? It would appear he was arguing with his wife, left the house in a rush, and the accident occurred.


• Did his wife take a swing at his car with one of Tiger's golf clubs as he was taking off? Could be.


• Did he cheat on his wife with the saucy nightclub employee? Having run a media center at a PGA Tour event, the cougar train is certainly available. And now with his latest "I have let my family down" nonsense, seems, um, HELL YES.


• Did he break a law? He has been cited for "careless driving" which is committed by 98 percent of soccer moms on cell phones driving enormous SUVs. Woods faces a $164 fine and four points against his driver's license, which I'm sure is terribly, terribly troubling for someone who pulls in more than $100 million annually.


• Is he really hurt since he pulled out of his own tournament this weekend? Not to speculate -- OK, let's speculate -- I'm guessing no.


• Is there a deeper secret here that's not yet come to light? Not looking so good for Mr. Woods.


• How are his sponsors reacting and will it impact his endorsements? We're not hearing much, and more than likely things will stay relatively calm.

And so it goes, with questions to ponder ad nauseum, especially with Tiger's initial terribly inauspicious statement he first offered on his website.

So where to go from here? I've had colleagues say he's committing reputational suicide to not say anything. After all, in the absence of Tiger's "voice" in this story, the gap is being filled by pure tabloid speculation.

There's the very valid notion that he is damaging his personal brand and placing in peril the profitable relationships -- he earned $99 million in endorsements alone in 2007 -- he has with his many sponsors including Nike and Gillette.

And this may be true. But I'm inclined to believe that, in spite of not taking the traditional route that most public relations practitioners would prescribe, he will be just fine.

Here's why:

• Tiger has always been dreadfully private and nearly silent about his life on and off the course. Have you seen the man interviewed? Painful.


• His inner circle is smaller than a closet full of dwarfs, so he won't have any hangers-on talking to reporters.


• Yes, the media will be camped out in front of his gate at Isleworth for the next month, and sure that will irritate the Woods family, but the hoard will get tired and go away....eventually.


• Unlike Kobe Bryant's salacious rape allegations -- resulting in Bryant losing all of his endorsements for a bit over a year -- Tiger really hasn't been charged with a crime that will place him in a televised courtroom. The guy obviously had something not-so-kosher going on, he argued with his wife, and then got into an accident after she was chasing him out of the house.


• And as the rubber meets the road in Tiger's bank account, as CNNMoney's David Goldman wrote, Tiger's sponsors are standing by him.

So in spite of my instincts telling me everything Tiger did until today was wrong per the book of Public Relations 101, again, I think Tiger is doing what works for Tiger and always has.

Would it work for me? No. I'd have him walk out in front of a media throng once and only once, and say, very simply, "My wife and I argued, I left the house in a hurry, and got in a minor car accident. We are working through things but all is fine otherwise. I look forward to kicking Phil Mickelson's ass at this year's Masters. Thank you."

Today, of course, he took it one step further by letting us know that his third leg has done quite a bit of walking.

But Tiger, no pun intended, is his own animal. He is bright and very private, and will be fine as this will all go away. In a few weeks he'll play a tournament and people will talk about it a lot. Then he'll play another tourney and it won't be discussed at all.

That is, unless we learn something between now and then. Oh, yeah, we just did.  So should we speculate on what that could be?

Oh, and just to reaffirm there's nothing quite like Chinese TV coverage of Tiger woods: