Tiger’s entourage ‘knew about his mistresses’

On the eve of Tiger Woods's return to competitive golf at the US Masters in Augusta, Georgia next week, Vanity Fair magazine has published a report claiming some of his closest advisors knew about his affairs, and helped organise and sometimes cover up his clandestine encounters. This runs counter to Tiger's claim that no one in his inner circle knew about the women he was seeing behind his wife's back.

The Vanity Fair article by Mark Seal also alleges that while Tiger (above right) was capable of blowing large amounts of money at the gambling tables - he apparently thought nothing of betting $30,000 on a hand of cards - he could be a cheapskate when it came to his girlfriends. One of them, Mindy Lawton, said the most he ever gave her was a chicken 'wrap' from a Subway sandwich franchise.

Jamie Jungers (above left), one of four mistresses interviewed for the article, claimed Tiger's childhood friend and business partner Bryon Bell helped to organise his affairs. "Every time I would fly out to see [Tiger] or schedule itineraries or anything, I would always go through Bryon," Jungers claimed.

Bryon Bell's name came up soon after the Woods scandal first blew up last November when it was alleged he helped organise a trip to Melbourne for the nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel, including paying for her hotel room at the Crown Towers Hotel, so that she could be with Tiger while he played in the Australian Masters. This was the last tournament he played in - and won - before he crashed his car outside his Florida home and his secret life began to unravel.

Mindy Lawton said Tiger's agent Mark Steinberg was also apparently aware of the golfer's extramarital affairs. She told Vanity Fair that when she first warned Woods that the National Enquirer knew about their affair, having seen her and Woods having early-morning sex in a car park, he told her to contact Steinberg at IMG Worldwide who, she says, responded: "We'll take care of it."

Lawton added: "That's when their brush-under-the-rug, the cover-up, happened."

Both Lawton's and Jungers's claims are at odds with Tiger's assertion in a recent interview with the Golf Channel that "no one knew what was going on or when it was going on," and that that if they had, they would have tried to stop him cheating on his wife, Elin Nordegren.

Neither Bell and nor Steinberg responded to Vanity Fair's request for a comment.

As for the cheapskate allegations, not all the girls did as badly as Lawton with her chicken wrap. One of Tiger's alleged mistresses, former Playboy model Loredana Jolie Ferriolo, claims she went on a $15,000 shopping spree and was able to charge it all to Tiger's hotel room. ·