Tiger Woods is pulling his golf game together, as evidenced by his early 2012 success. But some serious work remains with his public image.

According to survey results from Nielsen and E-Poll Market Research — as published by Forbes.com — 60 percent of the respondents said they “dislike”, “dislike a lot” or “dislike somewhat” the philandering golfer.

That aggregate score of 60 percent tied Woods with Eagles quarterback (and dogfighting convict) Michael Vick for top score in the survey. That is not where Woods needs to be while attempting to rebuild his sponsorship portfolio in the wake of tawdry revelations about his personal life.

Rounding out the Top Ten Most Disliked Athletes were:

• New York Jets receiver Plaxico Burress, 56 percent. He did prison time for gun possession after accidentally shooting himself at a nightclub. He remained arrest-free this season, but he didn’t sway a lot of fans his way.
• Detroit Lions defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh, 51 percent. The irritable behemoth has earned multiple NFL punishments for excessively violent play. America watched him stomp a guy on Thanksgiving. And he just doesn’t get it, as these comments to ESPN confirm: “I don’t have issues of beating up people in bars. I think people try and make their own opinion and I think it’s a storyline. It’s a great storyline. It’s kind of comical to me to keep saying something and really don’t have any substance behind it.”
• New Jersey Nets forward Kris Humphries, 50 percent. He played the stooge role to the hilt in his reality TV “marriage” to Kim Kardashian. How will he ever live that down?
• Miami Heat superstar LeBron James, 48 percent. “The Decision” still irks fans outside of South Beach. His failure to deliver the promised NBA title fueled additional fan derision. Bron-Bron is almost too easy to cheer against, which he noted with this bitter remark to reporters Wednesday: “I'm an easy target; if someone wants to get a point across -- just throw Lebron's name in there. You could be watching cartoons with your kids and you don't like it, you say, 'Blame it on LeBron.' If you go to the grocery store and they don't have the milk that you like, you just say, 'It's LeBron's fault.'”
• Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant, 45 percent. He wins titles, unlike James, but his egocentric behavior makes him hard to love. Fans outside of LA got a big kick out of his well-publicized, hugely expensive divorce.
• Former NFL receiver Terrell Owens, 45 percent. He was on his best behavior at the end of his pro career, but this admirable citizenship came too late. His fling with reality TV didn’t win many fans over. We’re guessing his foray into low-tier arena football won’t help either.
• New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, 44 percent. That scene of actress Cameron Diaz feeding him popcorn at the Super Bowl captured the A-Rod essence. Could anything say “pampered superstar” better than that?
• NASCAR driver Kurt Busch, 42 percent: A really bad temper at 200 miles per hour is a bad thing. Road rage is not very marketable.

 

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while the Blues cope with all their injuries up front:

Will "Bradying" soon rival "Tebowing" among young Americans?

Seriously, now, what is more fun than watching Patriots fans suffer?

Shouldn't every NBA team hire Will Ferrell to do do pre-game introductions?

Will Scott Drew wake up his Baylor team in time for Saturday's game at Mizzou?

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports: “The last World Series winner to undergo such a dramatic overhaul in the afterglow of its championship was the 2003 Florida Marlins, whose owners treated the ballclub like a foreclosed property. These Cardinals are different, torn apart for a wide swath of reasons, from economics to age to health to upward mobility. To call them better for it is a stretch; to call them worse is the same. Considering that over a two-month period, St. Louis lost the best player in baseball, one of the game’s best managers, arguably the best pitching coach and among the best scouting directors, the ability not just to maintain a semblance of continuity but to turn such losses into an otherwise productive offseason is a testament to how general manager John Mozeliak made this team his own.”

Rick Reilly, ESPN.com: “To too many of us -- sports writers, analysts or supposed Patriots fans -- the Super Bowl is a zero-sum game. Win and we would step in front of arrows for you. Lose and you're the biggest choker since the Hillside Strangler. Tom Brady is hearing all that ugliness now. So is Wes Welker. So is Bill Belichick. They don't deserve it. They don't deserve anything near it.”

Steve Rushin, SI.com: “He went in as the prospective G.O.A.T. and emerged as the presumptive goat, but what Tom Brady really is after Super Bowl XLVI is a living testament to the human need -- embedded in the race -- for individual scapegoats. While the name of the Super Bowl goat changes hourly -- Brady? Belichick? Bundchen? -- the name is hardly important. But history does demand that the role be filled. The Giants' Ahmad Bradshaw was somehow fitted for goat horns after scoring what proved to be the Super Bowl's game-winning touchdown. In retrospect, Patriots' coach Belichick became a possible goat for allowing Bradshaw to do just that . . . This goat business can get confusing, but suffice to say that the star of every game requires an anti-star. (The reverse holds true as well. No goats, no glory.) Here's how it works: Sometime after the conclusion of a Super Bowl -- and often times before then -- a consensus of international press, spectators and social media torchbearers will select its sacrificial goat. That goat is then fed into the vast, virtual spanking machine of the Internet, after which there is no turning back.”

Jeff Schultz, Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Wow. We knew college basketball was off the radar — but even at Duke? This comes from The Duke Chronicle, via Lost Letterman. About only 650 students are filling the 1,200-seat student section at Cameron Indoor Stadium, which means 550 nerds are MIA. As a result, Duke is selling general admission tickets to the student section, no matter how dumb you are or what your SAT score was. One of Duke’s marketing guys, Mike Forman, said: ‘The enthusiasm hasn’t been there. (Coach Mike Krzyzewski) has had to drum up enthusiasm himself, which he shouldn’t have to do.’ No. We don’t want to see Mikey grouchy. That would be . . . well, funny.”

MEGAPHONE

“He is a character and the characters in today's sports are valuable people. They attract fans, organizations love having them . . . the media enjoys having those types of characters around. There's always a unique story, you never know what's going to come out of the mouth sometimes. It's not vanilla.”

San Jose Sharks coach Todd McLellan, after letting Brewers outfielder (and former junior hockey player) Nyjer Morgan skate with his team last week.