Golf: Tiger says neck injury not related to crash

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pennsylvania - Tiger Woods says there is "zero connection" between the neck pain that forced him to withdraw from The Players Championship and his November 27 car accident.

Woods said during a news conference today that his neck started bothering him two weeks before the Masters, his first competition in five months. He brushed it off as "no big deal" until it kept getting worse.

"I'm at a point now where I just can't go anymore," he said.

"I want to practice, I want to play, I want to compete, but this is not allowing me to do the things that I need to do on my golf swing to hit the proper shots. I need to get to where I can do that again."

Woods said he's been taking anti-inflammatory drugs, but they have not helped. He plans to have an MRI when he returns to Orlando, Florida.

He said his schedule is "up in the air" and could be shaped based on what the MRI reveals.

In November, Woods was briefly hospitalised after he crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant and a tree outside his home, resulting in a sore neck and a cut lip.

Today, Woods insisted he can deal with the pain, which he feels in the right side of his neck, but cannot deal with the spasms that affect his ability to turn his head.

"For me not to play all 18 holes, that was as angry and as frustrated as I've been in a long time," Woods said of withdrawing from The Players Championship yesterday after six holes. It was Woods' first withdrawal from a tournament since the Nissan Open at Riviera in 2006.

Woods said he never reached a point until this weekend where he felt he needed more serious treatment on his neck to alleviate the pain.

"It's possible one of the reasons I think this thing flared up is because I wasn't conditioned to it," he said. "I'd been away from the game for such a long time, then came back and ramped up really quickly in order to try and play the Masters. The body wasn't quite ready for that."

After tying for fourth in the Masters, Woods looked lost on the course as he missed the cut at Quail Hollow on April 30 with the highest 36-hole score of his career.

He was noncommittal about playing the US Open on June 17-20.

"I'm trying everything I can to get back as soon as I can," Woods said.

Woods spent some of his time at The Players Championship denying speculation that he is about to leave Hank Haney, his swing coach since 2004. He said at Aronimink Golf Club that he was working on his swing.

"I talked to Hank about some of the stuff. We're still working on it," he said. "We have a lot of work to do. I can't make the movements that I made before because of the neck. I need to get healthy to play the proper way."

- AP