Chris Stratford: Woods should try to become the spitting image of Jack Nicklaus

Now the exact penalty imposed has not been revealed but the rules governing such matters, we are told, mean that it will have been a maximum of £10,000.

That is a lot of money to most of us, and would be a swingeing punishment for, say, a young golfer trying to make his way on the circuit at the start of his career.

But to billionaire Woods – his massive divorce settlement notwithstanding – it will have been about as painful to hand over as it would be for you or I to put some spare change in a charity box.

So what was the point in even bothering to charge the former world No 1, who seems to have forgotten very quickly last year’s pledge to clean up his on-course behaviour, unless a meaningful penalty was going to be imposed?

Before considering what might have been done to pull Woods up short and make him consider his actions, perhaps we should look at – and laugh out of this particular court – some evidence for his defence put up by his apologists, who felt he should not have been charged even with breaching the European Tour’s code of conduct.

In Dubai, Woods was trying to prevent his spell without a triumph stretching to 17 events – a record for his professional career – going back to November 2009.

But, from only one shot off the lead entering the final day, the holder of no less than 14 major titles dipped to 20th spot as he closed with a 75 – his worst score in a regular European Tour event since his amateur days.

This was offered as some form of mitigation, and those of us who were outraged were asked to understand the professional frustrations he was enduring mid-round which manifested themselves in his spitting.

It was suggested in some quarters this was an understandable, perhaps even acceptable expression of disenchantment and self-loathing because of his inability to just charge by the field to finish in first place, as he was wont to do in his heyday pre-Waitressgate.

Okay, no doubt the incident did have its roots in Woods’s notorious volcanic temper, but does that mean it has to erupt for us all to witness like some saliva-laden Mount Vesuvius?

If it was, as suggested, anything to do with professionalism then could he not have given it a moment’s thought before taking some other course of action to vent his fury – an internal monologue, perhaps, on what a jerk Tiger Woods can be at times?

After all, that assertion is one which must have rattled its way through his mind as often as club golfers leave their first bunker shot in the sand during the 15 months which have elapsed since his personal world was shown to have very shaky foundations.

Throughout his career Woods’s name has been inextricably linked with that of Jack Nicklaus, the man whose record of 18 major titles so many have always expected him to pass.

He has always professed his admiration for the Golden Bear and his achievements, so Woods could do worse than take a long hard look at Nicklaus and use him as his role model so that he, in turn, can be a better role model for today’s generation of golf watchers.

Here was a man who had to ignore taunts of ‘Fat Boy’ from the crowd as he took his first steps as a tour golfer when Arnold Palmer’s fanatical fans realised Nicklaus would challenge their hero’s status as the world’s finest player.

He has had his own problems off course – the financial difficulties chronicled in his autobiography My Story, for instance, as well as six years ago the tragic loss of a grandchild in a drowning accident.

Yet the worst we could expect from him when things were not going well on the course, if a shot drifted away from its intended target, for example, was to utter: “Awwww, Jack.”

The anger in such rare admonishments was detectable only by the edge to his voice, not its volume. And certainly not because it was ever accompanied by the expletives which all too regularly issue from Woods’s lips.

As impressive as his collection of grand slam victories is, the defining moment of Nicklaus’s career as one of the all-time greatest sportsmen came in the 1969 Ryder Cup when, on the final green of his match with Great Britain & Ireland’s Tony Jacklin, he conceded a three-foot putt which gave the then Open champion a half and meant the match finished tied overall.

“I didn’t think you would miss the putt,” Nicklaus told Jacklin, “but I wasn’t going to give you the chance.”

With that one, astonishing gesture Nicklaus underscored the regard he has for golf’s history. He did not want Jacklin to be remembered as a man who had lost the Ryder Cup by missing a short putt.

Woods, on the other hand, has regularly given the impression that the only history he is truly concerned with is the history he makes.

His haul of major triumphs can be used to place Woods as the second greatest golfer the world has known – but that does not place him above either its laws or its etiquette.

Club throwing remains part of the dark side of Woods’s game – Nicklaus never chucked a club after being told as a teenager by his father, ‘Do that again and you will never play golf again’ – and he has been a regular spitter on the course, although never before on the greens.

We all admire the sublime golf that he can play, no one more so – you suspect – than Nicklaus himself.

But if the authorities want to send out a message to Woods, and any other players who threaten to drag the game of golf towards the gutter with unpleasant, unsavoury, loutish behaviour, maybe the rules should allow for exclusion from major tournaments – the Open and US Open, the Masters and the US PGA.

Woods still has a way to go to usurp Nicklaus in that field and might be brought into line by the idea of a major ban.