MJ, Barkley Blamed for Tiger Woods’ Drama

El Tigre’s former adviser and lawyer tells Vanity Fair that Jordan and Barkley enabled him: “Woods’s preferred place to stay in Las Vegas was the Mansion at the MGM Grand, where a one-bedroom suite costs $5,000 per night. He would gamble in the ultra-exclusive V.I.P. casino nearby. According to a source known as Robin Hood 702, ‘sometimes the only people in the place were me, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan. Each of us sat at our own private table and played big. Tiger plays big. Up to 30 grand a hand … and when you’re playing splits and doubles, you can have 150 grand on one hand.’ ‘When Tiger showed up in Vegas, he was always with Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley,’ according to Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Norm Clarke. Years earlier, however, John Merchant had warned Woods to avoid Jordan and Barkley, saying of Jordan, ‘Stay away from that son of a b*tch, because he doesn’t have anything to offer to the f*cking world in which he lives except playing basketball.’ Merchant adds, ‘Are they his black role models? You’ve got to be kidding me.'”