Keith Urban, John Mayer lend support as Tiger Woods’ Tiger Jam benefit makes return

He's out of one jam and back in another. Tiger Woods' Tiger Jam resumes Saturday at Mandalay Bay, the first since its namesake caused one of the biggest celebrity scandals of the millennium.

The 13th concert in this charity series, which benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation, stars Keith Urban and John Mayer. Two of the most admired singer-guitarists performing today -- both by fellow musicians and sexual fantasizers -- they represent different prongs of a multigenre shift away from traditional guitar heroes. (Urban is country, Mayer blues-leaning, and neither remotely fits the moldy mold of a shredder.)

"I'm thrilled these two talented musicians are joining us for Tiger Jam," Woods said in a news release last year.

Urban and Mayer extend a long tradition of stellar Tiger Jam talent including the Eagles (1998), Celine Dion (1999) and Sting (2006). Whomever Tiger Jam hired as its headliner this year, however, its most anticipated participant was destined to be Woods himself. (According to his foundation, Woods will appear onstage to address the crowd on Saturday, as he has every year.)

And, while Urban and Mayer's involvement proves that strong celebrity support still exists for the beleaguered athlete, much more remains left to prove. Perhaps even more so than Woods' return to golf, Saturday's concert will gauge whether the public is ready to once again view the fallen hero in a flattering light. (According to a representative for MGM Resorts International, which owns Mandalay Bay, Tiger Jam 2011 is not yet sold out -- although the company expects it to be by show time.)

"If he were my client, I would have felt like it was a little bit too soon for another Tiger Jam," says Laura Herlovich, the Las Vegas-based publicist for entertainers Terry Fator and George Wallace.

Herlovich would have suggested waiting another year.

"I don't think he's quite got his footing underneath him yet again," she says.

For anyone stuck in a sand trap since November 2009, Woods was accused of keeping more than a dozen mistresses while married to his wife, Elin Nordegren, who promptly became his former wife. Although the world's most successful and respected golfer announced an "indefinite leave" from the sport in December 2009, he returned within 20 weeks.

Woods never detailed his digressions, but he released three apologies for being unfaithful -- two written, one televised. For several major corporations, those weren't enough. AT&T, Gillette and Accenture ended all sponsorships, endorsements and other affiliations with the philandering philanthropist. (AT&T sponsored the last Tiger Jam. This year's edition has no announced sponsors.)

Woods' predicament makes the choice of Urban and Mayer seem interesting. Both headliners have occupied unwanted tabloid covers alongside Woods -- Mayer for publicly disrespecting ex-girlfriends Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson and using the N-word during a magazine interview, Urban for allegedly cheating on wife Nicole Kidman. In fact, last year, Mayer -- known then for commenting on just about everything he was asked to -- took on the Woods scandal. He jokingly told the U.K.'s The Independent newspaper that it made him feel hopeful.

"With this whole Tiger Woods situation," he said, "I wish more people would be like, 'You know what, Mayer? You didn't (expletive) up at all.' "

In contrast, if you follow the statements issued by the Tiger Woods Foundation, nothing significant ever occurred. For example, when the charity concert sat out last year, for the first time in a dozen years, foundation president Greg McLaughlin blamed the schedules of artists, saying that they could not be coordinated with Mandalay Bay's availability.

"That's a great PR answer," Herlovich says. "Is it believable? Highly unlikely."

Herlovich suggests that Woods become a golf champion again before trying to pretend everything is business as usual. (Ranked the world's number one golfer for a record 623 weeks, he's now only fifth.)

"I don't think that other areas, like charity, can lead the way for him," she says.

Other industry observers see a year off as sufficient penance -- especially when those being punished are needy kids.

"If it happened last month, perhaps," says Joanne Reisser, an executive with the New Jersey-based charity watchdog group Charity Navigator. "But something that happened more than a year ago, is that going to undo all of those years of good work?"

Tiger Jam has raised more than $12 million for children's charities since it began at the Universal Amphitheatre in 1998. (This year's beneficiaries will be announced after the concert, although in 2009 they included the Center for Independent Living, the Greater Las Vegas Inner City Games, Boys & Girls Club of Las Vegas and the VH1 Save the Music Foundation.)

"I see nothing wrong with (Woods) being out in the public domain and raising funds for the cause that is near and dear to his heart," Reisser says.

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0456.