AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He is the greatest athlete the world has never known. And never will.

Sure, a sizable chunk of Western civilization will take it in with cheers if Tiger wins his fifth Masters tournament starting Thursday. It would be his 15th major tournament championship, three short of Jack Nicklaus' record.

Here, however, we are attempting to address not the golfer but the person. I wrote about 10 years ago that the only thing wrong with Tiger's future dominance was that we would never know him. At the time, I thought that sad. Hundreds of millions of dollars later in Tiger's bank account, I think it even sadder.

Among global celebrities, Joe DiMaggio was that way, too, only less of a mystery. Part of DiMag's deliberate distance from camaraderie was that he didn't have a lot to say about anything that didn't have much to do with center field. I found him polite -- I liked him because I like most people who like me, and he seemed to -- but unrevealing.

Tiger has plenty to say, including how it must feel to be a future billionaire. But I sat through a 40-minute news conference with him here and he never said one word about himself that was worth printing.

He was courteous, as he almost always is.

He was pleasant, as he almost always is.

INVISIBLE MAN

And he was too bland, as he almost always is, for it to be accidental. Only obsessive self-control seems to keep everything about him inside.

He made three interesting references -- all about others.

He mentioned a 39-year-old gas-station operator who will be in Thursday's starting field.

He talked about playing golf with John Smoltz, the Boston Red Sox pitcher with whom Tiger often competes at Isleworth, the Central Florida community where both live.

He talked about his wife, Elin, and their two children, who, he said, could save the worst golf day any human ever endured.

Nothing about Tiger.

Nothing that would give away the slightest hint of what he is all about.

He is golf's state secret.

I have one rag-tag theory why he is like this, but it cannot be any more than a guess.

When Tiger first made the scene big-time -- and remember, he is 33 years old and this is his 15th Masters -- he rode a considerable distance in a car with a magnificently gifted, and quirky, writer named Charles Pierce. The young Woods, hair down and obviously under the impression he would not be quoted, told some rough jokes along that ride.

Pierce wrote it all.

Did that turn Tiger into the man nobody knows?

Nobody outside maybe a dozen people can answer that. They include his mother, Tida, his agent, Mark Steinberg, fellow golfers Mark O'Meara and John Cook and (Stanford classmate) Notah Begay, and the merest few others. That's a tiny circle of friends, if even big enough to qualify for a circle, for a man so globally celebrated.

Tiger's golf is all answers.

His life is all questions.

He knows he is going to make that shot. Opponents hope they will make theirs. He doesn't sign autographs.

`IMPENETRABLE'

A friend of mine, one of golf's most prominent writers ever, has known every top golfer of the past 50 years, but he doesn't know Tiger. ''Impenetrable,'' that writer calls Tiger.

Tiger is friendly with several writers. More accurately, he is acquainted with them. He greeted a longtime acquaintance, Larry Dorman of The New York Times, at the eighth tee of the recent Bay Hill tournament and sang out, ``Want some trail mix?''

After Dorman accepted, Tiger pointed to a man in the following throng and remarked how much he resembled a certain tour golfer. He proceeded on to a brief imitation of the golfer in question. He is said to be a talented mimic when in the mood, but rarely does the imitation bit.

On a different level, some expect Woods to at least occasionally refer to President Barack Obama, if for no other reason than Obama is the first black president.

Tiger calls himself ''Cablinasian,'' for part Caucasian, part black, part Indian and part Asian. At Doral, Prayad Marksaeng of Thailand played a good round and someone jocularly mentioned to Woods that he was ''not low Thai,'' and he just as jocularly responded, ``I'm low Cablinasian.''

On the Obama matter, though, Tiger has been pointedly apolitical. He spoke at a Navy Glee Club affair at the Lincoln Memorial in connection with Obama's inauguration. Otherwise, no politics.

Part of this is easy to understand. With a virtually limitless fortune to manage alongside his still-blazing golf ambition, he has no time to spare.

Still, it is, well, odd.

Other items on the Nobody Knows Tiger Woods ledger are less difficult to figure.

When he was recuperating from surgery last year, he asked a fellow pro to do the honors for him at an affair that required considerable time. The fellow pro obliged, willingly and satisfactorily, but when Tiger hosted a gathering of his own at the end of the year, the pro who had done him that favor was not invited.

Why?

Don't ask him unless you know him, and you never will.

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