Golf: Plea for Woods to end 'circus' before return

Tiger Woods made his last public appearance at a Stanford University gridiron match. Photo / AP

One of Tiger Woods' peers has called upon the disgraced golfer to make his first public appearance before he steps foot on a golf course.

Speaking to reporters before the Abu Dhabi Championship today, Geoff Ogilvy said that Woods, who is tipped to return to the sport in a few weeks, "should actually come out in public before, and not at, a golf tournament."

"One, out of respect for all the other golfers and two, to defuse the circus part of it."

Woods' last public appearance was at a Stanford University engagement in November, shortly before the accident which set off a spectacular fall from grace. Accusations of marital infidelity followed, to which Woods eventually confessed.

Woods announced in December that he would take an indefinite hiatus from golf while he tried to repair his broken marriage. Photos, purported to be of him, surfaced online today amid reports he was undergoing treatment at an exclusive rehabilitation clinic in Mississippi.

The name and location of the clinic was divulged in a blog entry by Benoit Denizet-Lewis, a recovering sex addict who claimed to have been tipped off to Woods' presence there by an unnamed source.

Denizet-Lewis has retracted the blog and expressed regret for having identified the clinic.

He wrote in a subsequent entry: "As a person in recovery, I am in awe of anyone with the courage to confront and recover from their addiction. If my posting and the subsequent media coverage of it affected anyone's ability at this facility (or at any other) to recover anonymously, I am deeply sorry."

- NZ HERALD ONLINE