In the wake of the epic Tiger Woods scandal, of course people are going to start pointing fingers, looking for someone other than Tiger (or, in addition to Tiger) to lay the blame. We’ve already heard some of this – basically, Tiger’s management team were all blaming each other for the horrible way this story was handled. Now it’s not as if hiring a really good publicist would have helped that much, but it’s pretty clear Tiger has surrounded himself with sycophantic yes-men who want him to have every sketchy woman his heart desired, even if it meant back-door deals with media outlets. Anyway, this new report from The New York Daily News is about that, and there are some new sketchy details of just who was enabling and how:

They’re the loyal friends who kept Tiger’s secrets, warned him to be more careful – and stood by him even after his reckless behavior was exposed.

For more than a decade, the golfer’s social life has revolved around a handful of college chums, a childhood confidant, a fiercely protective agent and a smattering of sports figures. Few had access to the inner sanctum. Those who did knew better than to gossip about Tiger Woods’ less-exclusive club of sexy women.

Some of the buddies who knew about Woods’ cheating told him he was flirting with disaster – but he didn’t listen until it was too late.

“A lot of us who love him saw this coming,” a friend who’s known Tiger since he was 18 told the Daily News. “We said, ‘You’ve got to be careful. It’s really getting too raggedy.’ In his own mind, he may not have thought he was doing anything wrong. He was under a lot of pressure. He thought he was just letting off steam. He thought of it as a perk.”

Woods’ wife, Elin Nordegren, reportedly knew nothing about his infidelities and was stunned by the breadth of his betrayal. Still, the parade of busty blonds who emerged after a post-Thanksgiving car crash sparked questions about Woods’ marriage that couldn’t have been a surprise to his closest male pals.

High-school pal Bryon Bell, president of Tiger Woods Design, probably knew the most, reportedly helping with logistics for more than one affair, multiple sources said.

“He would coordinate my flight itineraries and make sure I was all set up to see Tiger,” admitted mistress Jamie Jungers, 26, told The News. “He was a very nice guy.”

Another source said Bell contacted Hollywood madam Michelle Braun to set up “introductions” between Tiger and her “models.”

“He was definitely the middleman for Tiger,” the source close to Braun said.

The roster of Tiger’s celebrity friends includes retired basketball legends Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley – who was around when Jungers partied with Tiger, she claimed.

His nonfamous friends “are a bunch of nice guys, but their behavior has been a little sophomoric,” said an insider who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said that aside from Bell, Woods’ closest friends are former Stanford teammate Jerry Chang and post-college pal D.J. Hanlon. Chang roomed with Woods during competition travel in the mid-’90s and worked for Tiger’s foundation before pursuing an MBA. Notoriously media-shy, Chang did not returns calls.

“Tiger will always just be one of the guys to me,” Chang told a newspaper in 1998. “He has a different life than most of us, that’s for sure. But he’s not bigger than life.”

Woods spoke glowingly of Chang’s “serious” demeanor when he chose him as a pro-am tournament partner in 2000. “He won’t get in the way. He won’t be chit-chatting or talking,” Woods said.

Hanlon is rarely mentioned in connection with Tiger, but they met in the late ’90s when Hanlon’s dad was president of the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, a source said.

“It was through Butch Harmon, Tiger’s coach,” the source said, explaining Hanlon was working for his dad when Harmon opened a golf school at the Rio. Hanlon did not return calls.

As the scandal explodes, all three friends have maintained the code of silence that has long characterized their relationship with Tiger. One Stanford-connected friend said that speaking out, even in the golfer’s defense, would be friendship suicide.

“Jerry and all of us are dealing with the same thing,” the friend said. “This is Tiger’s thing. We can’t comment.”

[From The New York Daily News]

It will be interesting to see who from the inner circle ends up selling their story. My guess is whoever gets fired first will be the one to tell all. And you know someone is getting fired.

Meanwhile, there are two more sketchy reports – first of all, Radar (working from some British sources) reports that Elin Woods might be seeking sole custody of their two children because she’s so pissed at him and his crazy Ambien sex. Second story: Page Six reports that Tiger loved strip clubs, and would go to them all the time. His favorite thing in the world was to go to a strip club and act “innocent” like he had never been to one before – which seems like a weird fantasy/fetish to me, but whatever. The full Page Six report is here, and it’s gross.