Woods quickly issued a statement saying that he was embarrassed, that the “false, unfounded and malicious rumors” surrounding the incident are irresponsible, and that everyone should respect his privacy. But he repeatedly canceled interviews with the police, and he has refused to speak with the media.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows defendants to decline to speak with authorities in order to avoid self-incrimination. Any good defense attorney will advise against a police interview it provides opportunities to quibble over holes, misstatements and inconsistencies in one’s story. So Woods was on solid legal ground as police continued their investigation.

But the court of public opinion differs from the court of justice. Whether you’re a famous golfer or a business owner facing hostile scrutiny, speculation flourishes when facts are in short supply. A wise public relations counselor knows that the subject of a news event has only a limited time in which to exert some control over the discussion. After that, the vacuum is filled with conjecture and innuendo – particularly in a media culture obsessed with celebrity and scandal. The National Enquirer and another publication had previously reported that Woods had been having an affair with a New York model and nightclub hostess.

And a few days after the crash, gossip site TMZ.com said Woods told a “non-law enforcement type” that the official story about the crash was wrong. According to “a source,” TMZ claimed, Woods’ wife had confronted Woods about reports that he was seeing another woman, scratched his face, and chased the car as he fled, smashing the windows.

”We’re also told,” TMZ said in breathless tabloid style, “Woods had said during the conversation Friday he had been taking prescription pain medication for an injury, which could explain why he seemed somewhat out of it at the scene.”

How much of that (possible domestic violence, possible impaired driving) is actually true is almost irrelevant in PR terms. The damage has been done. It might not be enough to hurt him in the long run, but it’s certainly provoking snickers for now.

When bad news erupts, New West advises clients to speak up immediately, state the obvious, indisputable facts, and say as much as you can in order to reduce the feeding frenzy.  Use your own social media tools to share your story. If the situation is complicated or involves third parties, then set a time and place when the media can expect an update.  That way the media aren’t forced to fall all over themselves to investigate, to land an “exclusive,” interviewing neighbors, friends, relatives, old girlfriends, high-school classmates, auto-shop repairmen, hairdressers, landscapers and the man on the street to uncover more dirt – whether relevant to the story or not.

Woods certainly has the right as a private individual to refuse to talk to the media, but as a major public figure is he doing the right thing for his image and reputation?

In the absence of a definitive explanation from Woods, questions will continue to swirl and Tiger Woods can expect to spend more time in the rough.

We in Kentucky have suffered a double whammy in the past 6 months. We’ve had both hurricane force winds that knocked out power to some for two weeks, then an ice storm from which we are still recovering.

We have helped a variety of our clients create and follow crisis plans and, without fail, they’ve told us how much better they felt being able to follow a plan, rather than simply running from one crisis to another.

How did we at New West weather the crisis?  On the worst day of the ice storm, our office was open and we had power, but many of our employees could not get in.  In anticipation of the bad weather, we asked employees to refresh themselves on the emergency office closing policy in the company handbook and download active projects on jump drives so they could work from home.  Unfortunately, too many homes were without power so some projects were put on hold for a day or two.

Since our staff size is relatively small we created a “phone tree” to tell our staff of our plans the day the storm hit with a vengeance and we also sent out an e-mail as backup.  Most of our employees have Blackberry^TM service.

Frankly, we need to work on the no power, no phone, no cell, and no access scenario.

I am interested in determining how your company communicates with employees during an emergency, so we have set up a short survey you can take. We will share the results in a future e-newsletter article and/or blog post.

In the meantime, I’ll stress it again.  We’ve already had a hurricane and an ice storm in the last few months… what other emergency is lurking out there?  How will you deal with it?