Woods lashes out

STRAFFAN, Ireland -- Tiger Woods was outraged Wednesday at an Irish magazine and a tabloid that linked photos of his wife to various pornography sites, and his agent was studying the merits of a lawsuit.\n"My wife, yes, she has been a model prior, and she did do some bikini photos," Woods said. "But to link her to porn Web sites and such is unacceptable, and I do not accept that at all. Neither does our team."\nThe Dubliner magazine wrote in its September issue about Elin Nordegren, his Swedish wife of nearly two years.\n"Most American golfers are married to women who cannot keep their clothes on in public," the magazine wrote. "Is it too much to ask that they leave them at home for the Ryder Cup? Consider the evidence. Tiger Woods' wife can be found in a variety of sweaty poses on porn sites."\nThe Irish Daily Start gave it front-page treatment Wednesday with the headline, "Tiger's Fury at Naked Pictures."\nInside the tabloid, it reprinted photos of Nordegren in a bikini, along with a nude photo of a woman purported to be Nordegren. Woods vehemently denied it was his wife when it first came out three years ago.\nMark Steinberg, his agent at IMG, said he was debating whether to pursue a lawsuit.\n"It's ridiculous," Steinberg said from IMG headquarters in Cleveland. "I can't say much now because of prejudice because I'm not sure what we'll do in the future. Everyone knew it (the nude photo) wasn't her. It's plain as day. You can see it's not factual. It's kind of ironic they bring it up this week."\nIt was the first topic Woods brought up at his news conference leading to the Ryder Cup, which starts Friday at The K Club.\nWoods said his anger has nothing to do with the Irish people or the gallery that came to the golf course, even on Wednesday when the course was closed for three hours in the morning because of 40 mph wind and rain.\n"I know the media can be a little bit difficult at times, but ... it's hard to be very diplomatic about this when you have so much emotion involved, when my wife is involved in this," Woods said. "As I said, I don't want that to deter from the beauty of this event."\nWoods said making public his feelings was a matter of sticking up for his wife.\n"You do things for the people you love and you care about," Woods said. "My father got ridiculed for years, and I always felt for my father and my mother the same way. My wife, we're in it together. We're a team, and we do things as a team. And I care about her with all my heart"