Tiger's Rep SAGs

By Stephen M. Silverman

06/22/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

Golf's golden boy Tiger Woods is looking a bit tarnished in the eyes of some of his non-sports peers. The athlete was fined $100,000 by the Screen Actors Guild for shooting a nonunion Buick commercial during its six-month strike against advertisers, the actors union announced on Thursday. SAG confirmed that its trial board agreed to suspend half of the fine, which would then be reinstated should Woods again break ranks and appear in an ad during any future strike. "The decision to shoot a commercial during the SAG strike was a difficult one," a contrite Woods said in a statement issued after the SAG ruling. "Now more than ever, I understand how serious SAG's situation was, and I apologize for any pain I may have caused." Even so, not all SAG members were appeased. Several were said to have wanted Woods booted out of the union altogether. During the strike, General Motors reported work slowdowns on the Buick assembly lines after SAG demonstrated outside some of its plants.