Southampton Estate: Did Tiger Buy It or Not?

I want to stop wondering if Tiger did or didn’t and just when I think I’m cured, Vanity Fair whets the appetite once again. In what VF calls “Southampton’s parlor game for the summer,” (7th graf down) speculation still abounds as to whether golf great Tiger Woods purchased the Gin Lane estate for $65 million, or not. The VF article quotes Southampton developer Kim Pape as saying, “Actually, I’ve heard it’s Tiger Woods after all. The seller told someone who told me.”

Shortly after I posted about Braden Keil’s New York Post Exclusivein which a lot of bloggers were going back-and-forth over whether he did or didn’t (Golf.com — No; Real LI — No; Big Time Listings — Who Knows?) I received an e-mail from someone saying he did buy the house, and they know because their friend has some kind of business in Southampton and has worked on the house, yadda, yadda. Right. Whatever. How am I to believe this person who won’t go on record? I thought, the town newspaper usually has the inside scoop, so I contacted Rick Murphy, editor-in-chief of The Independent, which covers Southampton, East Hampton, Riverhead, Southold and Shelter Island, and he said, “I don’t think he did buy it.” But, maybe Rick is just trying to throw me off the trail in case he’s onto something. I know, this is crazy.

Nevertheless, records show it sold on March 17, 2008 to an LLC named South Lane Properties. Can somebody please just camp out in front of the estate’s gate to see if Tiger comes or goes?