ESPN has been forced to claim Tiger Woods’ unkempt hair was not too much to air.
There were two Woods mugshots that made the rounds Monday, each startling in its own way. The first was distributed by the Palm Beach County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office, featuring a baggy-eyed Tiger with an empty, unsettling look on his face.
And a second appeared that was slightly altered, with a different background and his scraggly hair trimmed into a buzzcut — the doctored version that ESPN used.
The Worldwide Leader said the hair was not a crime too gruesome to show to innocent viewers, but rather a result of cropping Woods onto the template it uses for each athlete’s headshot.
“We have utilized a standard template for on-air headshots, which led to the background being dropped for consistency,” ESPN said in a statement. “We will revisit this process to improve it going forward.”
The process may have been revisited as early as Tuesday, as the network’s further coverage of the DUI arrest featured Woods’ tousled strands.