Second Masters Question: Are Tiger And CBS On The Rocks?

I was surprised at the number of commenters put off by Peter Kostis's excellent post round interview of Tiger Woods, though I see as time passes it's Tiger's answers that are taking the most criticism and Kostis' work that is being admired. As it should be.

John Strege noted Kostis's questions and the backstory of the past Kostis-Woods drama.

After Woods' round on Sunday Kostis asked him what, after all he has gone through in recent months, this week meant to him.

"Finished fourth," Woods replied tersely. "Not what I wanted."

Kostis followed with a question about Woods' attempts to keep his emotions in check on the golf course, a bid that went awry at points on Sunday.

"I think people are making way too big a deal about that," Woods said.

Really? On Monday, when Woods sat for a pre-tournament interview with the media, he was asked this: "You said in February that when you returned to the game that you wanted to show more respect for the game. In what way are we going to see sort of differences out there between the ropes and outside the ropes?

Woods' response: "Yeah, great question. I'm actually going to try and obviously not get as hot when I play. But then again, when I'm not as hot, I'm not going to be as exuberant, either. I can't play one without the other, and so I made a conscious decision to try and tone down my negative outbursts and consequently I'm sure my positive outbursts be will calmed down, as well."

Kostis also asked where we'd be seeing Tiger next and got a non-commital answer. But a good question, nonetheless.

So Tiger looks bad in front of 21.3 million people and he'll likely blame Kostis and CBS for that, even though he's the one that answered the questions poorly.

Couple that with Jim Nantz's strong criticism of Woods, CBS's refusal to play by Tiger's Sunday night 5-minute interview guidelines, and it does make one wonder if Woods is going to become a CBS hater.

Then again, NBC, which I noted was not offered a 5-minute interview reportedly because of its relentless Today Show and Dateline scandal coverage, means that leaves...ESPN and Golf Channel on the preferred network list?