By the way, anyone hear of the whereabouts of Francis Koenig? Just asking…

from www.nydailynews.com – Tiger Woods made New York City party girl Cori Rist infamous, but a Manhattan sugar daddy helped the busty blond pay the rent.

The hedge fund honcho admitted Monday he wired Rist – the latest in an ever-lengthening line of sexy women linked to Woods – $100,000 because “she wasn’t able to support herself.”

“She is a friend and that is it,” the man, who asked not to be identified, said Monday.

The honcho said he dated the 31-year-old siren for a couple of months last winter and insisted their relationship “was more emotional than anything else.”

“I did it for her son as much as anybody because he was having a hard time with her divorce,” he said of the money.

“She was unemployed for a long period of time. She wasn’t able to support herself and I agreed to help her.”

Rist told the sugar daddy she used to work on Wall Street, but a spokeswoman for the Penthouse Executive Club said the only assets Rist risked were those she displayed at the club as a dancer.

“She was very sweet,” said Tara Bennet. “She never caused any problems.”

Rist and at least six other women – including a porn star – have been tied to Woods since the married golfing great smashed his SUV into a fire hydrant a day after Thanksgiving – and totaled his family man reputation.

Woods met Rist at the New York celebrity hangout Butter last year, the Daily News reported Sunday.

The mother of a 7-year-old son who idolizes Woods, Rist has not commented on her reported six-month fling with the golf giant.

The News contacted her hedge fund “friend,” a married father of three, after discovering documentation that he transferred the bucks to Rist on March 3.

Asked why he didn’t just insist that Rist, who lives in a plush Chelsea pad, move to cheaper digs, the moneyman admitted, “I really didn’t look into it.”

The moneyman said he was stunned to see Rist’s photograph on the front page of The News and that she never said anything about Woods to him.

“I was floored when I saw the pictures this morning,” he said.

He said he met Rist through “some of her friends.”

Rist, he said, claimed she worked in the securities industry and lost her job because of office infighting.

The moneyman said he bought Rist’s tale of woe because “she’s really bright.”

Asked if Rist traded sex for money, the moneyman insisted that was not the case.

“I gave her a little bit,” he said, referring to the money. “This was strictly to get her back on her feet. … I can assure you there was nothing of the sort.”