Tiger’s timing unfortunate says Sergio Garcia

With hours to go before Tiger Woods makes his long-awaited but highly controlled appearance before the press - only a selected handful are invited and no questions will be allowed after the disgraced golfer has read his statement - more fellow professionals have questioned the timing.

Yesterday, The First Post reported that Ernie Els thought it was selfish of Woods to hold court in Florida while the first tournament of the year was underway in Arizona.

There were also questions being asked about the strange coincidence that the sponsors of the Match Play Championship in Arizona event were Accenture - the consultancy firm that very publicly dumped Tiger soon after he announced his "indefinite break" from golf in early December in an effort to save his marriage.

Since then two more golfers - Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy - have added their comments.

Rory McIlroy, the young world No 8 from Northern Ireland, said: "He's got to come out at some point. I suppose he might want to get something back against the sponsor that dropped him."

Spanish golfer Sergio Garcia (pictured above with Woods in November last year) said the timing of today's gathering in Florida - at 11.0 am local time, two hours before the the third day's play gets underway in Arizona - was "unfortunate".

However, Garcia made it clear he would not be interrupting his pre-match routine to hear Woods break his near three-month silence. "To tell you the truth, I'm really not that interested because for me it's past already. I'm looking forward to seeing him on tour and seeing him playing."

The question remains - has Tiger timed today's statement out of revenge? An Accenture executive said yesterday he did not believe so. "I think Tiger's got his reasons why he wants the announcement on Friday," said Fred Hawrysh, the corporation's director of communications.

"We still have a good relationship with Tiger. But the reality is our advertising just didn't work any more. Once the events took place, we were finding that people were looking at our ad in a different way. It wasn't having the intended message any longer."

Tiger's agent Mark Steinberg also discounted the revenge idea. "It's strictly a timing issue," he said. "There is a very good reason [to do it today] and not do it next week."

Intriguing. Could Tiger be planning to return to the golf circuit sooner than expected? Perhaps to play in next month's Tavistock Cup? Watch this space. ·