Exactly two weeks after the accident, another statement was posted on Woods' Web site.

For the first time Woods admitted he had been unfaithful. "I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children," he said.

He asked for forgiveness, and said he didn't know if it would ever be possible to repair the damage he caused.

Then he announced what would have been unthinkable only days earlier: He was taking an indefinite break from golf to try to mend his fractured family life.

Before the crash and before the women started coming forward, Woods was staring at 2010 with great anticipation. He was playing perhaps better than ever, and three of the four major golf championships were at courses where he had won majors by runaway margins in previous years.

Now there's a possibility he could miss the Masters for the first time in 14 years. He might not play in the US Open at Pebble Beach, where he won by a record 15 strokes in 2000.

No one knows when he will return, and whether he can retain the famous focus that had made him arguably the greatest golfer ever. The state of his marriage is also anyone's guess, and there has been no shortage of speculation about the future of the Woods household.

In just a matter of days an empire and a legend came crashing down in ways no one would have imagined. The perfect firestorm enveloped Woods and, for once in his life, he had no way of controlling what was happening around him.

The fall from grace has been both sudden and spectacular. At the peak of power just last month, he now faces an uncertain future that can't be changed with some clever marketing campaign.

This wasn't just another case of an athlete gone bad. Woods was the 2-year-old hitting golf balls on the Mike Douglas show, the teenager who won three straight US Amateurs, and the first African-American to win the Masters.

He was the talent so great that Nike introduced him as a professional with an advertising blitz behind the tagline "Hello World," and the figure so imposing that his late father, Earl, predicted he would not only become greater than athletes such as Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson, but one of the greatest figures in world history.

"He's qualified through his ethnicity to accomplish miracles. He's the bridge between the East and the West," Earl Woods said in 1996. There is no limit because he has the guidance. I don't know yet exactly what form this will take. But he is the Chosen One."

Woods may not have accomplished miracles, but he did some miraculous things on the golf course. His legend grew with every win as he closed in on the records of Jack Nicklaus, and even a knee injury that cost him the last half of 2008 couldn't stop his march to greatness.

His family life seemed as perfect as his golf. He married the beautiful Elin five years ago, they honeymooned on his yacht "Privacy" and soon started a family that includes two young children.

Even those who didn't appreciate his play on the course admired him as a man, above the scandalous behavior of so many sports superstars these days.

Now, no one will ever look at him the same way again.