Tiger Woods strips to the waist and flexes some muscle

By David Gardner

Revealing: Tiger Woods appears on the front of Vanity Fair, out on January 12, stripped to the waist and flexing his muscles


Bare-chested and pumping iron, here is another side of Tiger Woods exposed to the world.

The shamed golfer may still be in hiding since being engulfed by the cheating scandal, but readers will get an eyeful of the embattled golfer in next month’s issue of Vanity Fair.

In a much-criticised move, a British High Court judge granted 33-year-old Woods an injunction last month preventing the British media from publishing any naked photographs of the sportsman.

But the revealing cover shot and a set of photos inside the magazine of the stripped-down golfer working out - including one of him hanging from a bar - show off his body as never before.

They were taken by acclaimed celebrity photographer Annie Liebovitz in January, 2006, long before he reputation was wrecked by the stream of allegations that the father-of-two cheated on his wife Elin Nordegren with as many as a dozen women.

But they still show the golfer in a very different light to the genial gentleman of the greens he was known as before the scandal.

The portfolio is part of a session snapped by Ms Liebowitz to show off the golf champion’s buffed up body and his keep-fit regimen.

Under the headline ‘Tiger in the Rough’, Woods is seen in one photograph inside wearing the same wool cap as on the cover but with his bare back turned to the camera.


Woods's wife Elin Nordegren pictured out and about on Saturday in Chamany where she is on a skiing trip


In another shot, he is seen naked from thje chest up and staring menacingly. A third photo shows him doing sit-ups.

The magazine says the pictures capture Woods ‘in prophetic isolation.’
There was some mystery over how the photos surfaced last night.

Vanity Fair said the ‘raw, unguarded’ pictures were part of the photographer’s archive and that she approached the magazine with them after the cheating scandal broke.

A spokeswoman said she didn’t know why the three-year-old photos hadn’t been published earlier and Ms Liebvovitz wasn’t available for comment last night.

The accompanying article includes interviews with some of the sports reporters who covered Woods for years to find out how he kept his philandering secret for so long


The pair together in happier times at the Presidents Cup golf tournament in San Francisco last October


Writer Buzz Bissinger also revisits the embarrassing interview the then 21-year-old Woods gave to GQ magazine in 1997 when he joked about lesbian sex and the endowments of black athletes.

Last month’s High Court ruling by Mr Justice Eady came after US reports that Playgirl magazine had been offered intimate pictures of Woods taken by an alleged mistress.

The judge was criticised after the judgment for defending so-called libel tourism.
While Woods’ wife is said to have spent the holidays celebrating her 30th birthday far from her husband in the French Alps, there was a report in the U.S. yesterday that the golfer was in Africa.

The website TMZ quoted a source as saying Woods was planning to go to a friend’s estate in Africa and completely disappear from public view until the scandal blows over.

There have also been reported sightings of the golf star in New York and Flordida, although none of them have been confirmed.



source: dailymail