Tiger Woods may or may not play in the Masters in April -- not appears to be the decided favorite -- and it follows that there will be daily sourced/unsourced reports about the shape of his game and his ailing back.
So with that, here's the latest: Mark Steinberg, Woods' long-time agent, felt compelled Monday to release a statement to shoot down a series of reports on Twitter indicating Woods had a major setback in his rehabilitation from his most recent back surgery in October.
Steinberg: "The tweets that appeared this weekend about Tiger's health are ridiculous and absolutely false. It's reprehensible that every few months someone makes something up and it's treated like a real story. Tiger continues to work on his rehabilitation and we will have an accurate update at the appropriate time."
Those are pretty strong words, even if they do come from somebody who rarely has intersected with the term "full disclosure." Everything involving Woods generally is protected like state secrets -- until, to use Steinberg's words, "the appropriate time."
So my default position on Steinberg's statement is: Woods is ailing but he and Nike aren't ready to announce anything yet.
However . . .
The Tweets in question came from two accounts: SecretTourPro (anonymous, and therefore suspect) and Robert Lusetich (a long-time golf writer who just came out with a book, "Unplayable: An Inside Account of Tiger's Most Tumultuous Season," and therefore alsosuspect because he potentially profits from any publicity).
Here are the Tweets:
I'll just add this: For reports that supposedly are completely fabricated, there's some pretty good detail in there.
At some point we'll know the truth because the Masters is April 7-11.
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