A MESS

Friend Of Tiger's Waitress Mistress Spilled Sordid Details Last December

By Elizabeth C.

AS MORE SORDIDNESS IS REVEALED ABOUT TIGER WOODS IN THE new issue of Vanity Fair, less titillating but unflattering details emerge that paint him as a cheapskate.

In the article written by contributing editor Mark Seal, ex-mistresses Mindy Lawton and Jamie Jungers paint Woods as a tightwad. Lawton said the only thing Tiger ever purchased her was a Subway chicken wrap sandwich. And Jungers admits that she broke off the affair because Tiger refused to help when she was in financial trouble.

That sentiment was echoed in a December interview I had with Peter J. Drake, who also used to work at the Perkins' restaurant where Tiger frequently dined with his wife Elin. "He always made it a point to say hi to her and bye to" Mindy, said Drake, 30, who described himself as very close friend of Lawton's.

In our December conversation, Drake reiterated the cool outward appearance between Tiger and Elin that Lawton’ depicts for the magazine.

“He was either reading a newspaper or on the phone. I don’t think I ever saw them conversing,’’ Drake said. “You’d think that she worked for him, that was my impression…She would normally be the first one to come and she would try to find a table out of the way.”

Drake called Tiger a “15 percent tipper” who refused to even pay for Mindy’s drinks on the first night they met out at the Blue Martini in Orlando. Tiger was “very frugal,’’ he said.“I don’t know if he was doing it to look out for himself.” When Elin paid, he said, she left 20 percent tips.

Lawton’s first encounter with the golf pro came after Tiger telephoned the restaurant to talk to Mindy.

“I answered the phone,’’ said Drake, who then passed the phone to Mindy. ”She turned white as a ghost. I thought she was having some sort of medical crisis.”

Initially, Drake didn’t believe her when she said it was Tiger on the phone, but it wasn’t long before she was confiding details of their affair.

He said Tiger made her and her sister pay for their own drinks at the Blue Martini, an upscale bar in west Orlando where Mindy first met Tiger, and that the two sisters followed Tiger back to his Windermere, Fla. mansion.

Among the private details Mindy shared with Drake was that she didn’t know how to activate Tiger’s computer-controlled toilet.

And back in December Drake revealed another detail about his friend's tryst with Tiger: A tabloid reporter who had been trailing her had confiscated the bloody tampon Tiger discarded in a Baptist church parking lot while having sex with Lawton in his Cadillac. The new issue of Vanity Affair cites the same story.

Drake described the tabloid reporter as “an overweight guy with greasy blonde hair….At first he’d come in and just sit at a table and watch her,’’ he said. “He recovered a bloody tampon that she discarded in the parking lot.”

Mindy alerted Tiger, who soon after ended the affair, according to Drake.