Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn make a pretty pair in the pictures they posted on
Facebook on Monday, but relationship experts don't expect wedding bells.
"The chances for a successful relationship are pretty slim," Wendy Walsh, a Los
Angeles-based psychologist and relationship expert and author of The 30-Day Love
Detox, told USA TODAY Sports. "It's going to be very challenging. They will have
far more challenges than most people have. They're under such a microscope. It's
just really hard to have a normal relationship with the world looking around
every corner.
"Because of Tiger's notorious infidelities, he'll be under such a microscope.
Every time he talks to a pretty girl on the golf course, Lindsey is going to
hear about it."
Also skeptical is the oddsmaker Bovada, which will take bets on 4-to-1 odds that
Woods and Vonn will be engaged by Jan. 1, 2015.
Woods, golf's biggest star, and Vonn, skiing's biggest star, confirmed in
Facebook postings Monday the long-standing news reports that they are a couple.
Vonn wrote that their friendship grew "into something more over these past few
months and it has made me very happy."
Woods, 37, and Vonn, 28, asked the media and their fans to respect their
privacy, but at the same time posted a series of posed photographs.
"It looks like an advertisement, doesn't it?" Walsh says. "It looks like they
want us to know something. What is it they want us to know? Maybe Tiger is
saying that he really can be in a healthy monogamous relationship. I have to say
it's kind of fascinating how much she (Vonn) looks like his ex-wife. I guess we
all have a type, don't we?"
Woods and Elin Nordegren, a blond former model from Sweden, divorced after
Woods' series of infidelities became known. Vonn recently was divorced from
Thomas Vonn, a former ski racer who became her coach and adviser as well as
husband.
Both have dealt with fallout from their past. Woods went into therapy after his
extramarital affairs became headlines. Vonn has acknowledged being treated for
depression.
"It could be an accident waiting to happen," Bonnie Eaker Weil, a relationship
therapist in New York and author of Make Up, Don't Break Up, said of the
Woods-Vonn pairing.
But Weil said Woods and Vonn can be helpful to one another in getting through
past issues. "You can't say hello until you've said goodbye," she says. "They
have a lot in common. Both are trying to overcome a painful past and get on with
a new beginning. They can help each other work through old relationships."
In the long run, Weil says, "Rebounds never work. I would say what they have is
pseudo-intimacy. I do not think it has a chance for the long haul."
Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn posted a series of photos while officially
confirming their relationship.
