Here we go again: Another professional athlete accused of not being able to keep his “tiger” in its cage. I mean, if you can’t count on golf’s golden guy to do a better job of hiding what many consider inevitable infidelity in the world of pro sports, who can you count on?

Inevitable infidelity…it’s so sad, isn’t it? I mean really, who among us is shocked that a handsome, rich athlete would be accused of stepping outside of his marriage, turning his back on his family, and putting his reputation at risk for some, ahem, “unauthorized ball handling”? Of course, all Woods will fess up to is “transgressions”, which I think Webster’s dictionary defines as “being a cheating, horn-dog sleaze bag.” Still, had none of us mentally pictured Tiger Wood’s wife chasing him with a golf club while screaming “I’m about to put an ace in your hole!”, would we really have cared? Sure we would have whispered about it at the water cooler for about a day but after that, one would imagine some insignificant nugget of Sarah Palin’s life would have regained the wall-to-wall media coverage. (“Did you hear she told Glenn Beck she might consider sending Levi Johnston a dozen black virtual roses on Valentine’s Day? Does her rogue-ness know no limits?!”) If not for the the suspicious car accident, one might say this Tiger news just wouldn’t be, well, news.

In fact, what boggles the mind is not so much the “ooh, squeaky clean Tiger may have cheated” story line. It’s that these high profile guys never seem to learn from the one before them. They seem to approach their infidelity with a “my mistress will be different” mentality. They figure “This situation is totally under control. She’d never sell me out to some cheesy tabloid. She cares about me too much.” Low and behold, two years later, she’s selling your voicemails to the highest bidder. You poor, poor fool…

The arrogance of these guys is unfathomable. I mean, what makes them think they’re the only ones who know how to spit a couple of good lines or say whatever the other person wants to hear. As easy as it is for these pro athletes to convincingly deliver a classic line like “Oh baby, you’re the only one who understands me” it’s just as easy for these side pieces to manage an “Of course I’ll never tell” with a straight face. This is all a game. Except in this game, the real player is the one with nothing to lose.

In the case of former Titans quarterback Steve McNair, that little “something something” on the side cost him his life. In Tiger Woods’ case, public humiliation and at worst a few endorsements are all that appear to be on the line. You gotta imagine he’s saying to himself “it just wasn’t worth it.” And somewhere, some high profile celebrity is shaking his head at Tiger’s mess while sharing a drink with his other woman thinking “I’d never let that happen to me.”

Oh when will they learn?

And now this…