A couple days after Tiger Woods faked his way around Torrey Pines for major victory No. 14, Retief Goosen joked that he thought Eldrick was playing up the bum knee: 'It just seemed when he (Woods) hit bad shots his knee was in pain and on his good shots he wasn't ... Nobody knows if he was just showing off or if he was injured and I believe if he was really injured he would not have played.'
Surprisingly, this went over about as well as a Fuzzy Zoeller menu suggestion during Masters week, which led to the inevitable backlash, and even more inevitable Goosen back peddle. And because saying "I was joking ... I never spoke to the guy" is obviously not reason enough to let the issue die, Goosen took the unprecedented step of offering a formal apology (it's even notarized!) on his website.
...Actually my comments after Tiger won the Open were intended to be tongue in cheek, and certainly not the way they appeared in print. But they did, and I wholeheartedly apologise for that and intend to contact Tiger to explain this to him.
To be honest, the fact that Tiger won the US Open while suffering that sort of injury is incredible..... clearly this Goose was no match for a one-legged Tiger! I wish Tiger a speedy recovery and look forward to welcoming him back on Tour as soon as possible.Good Lord. The highlight of the groveling? Goosen refers to himself in third person, by his nickname. Other than that, this whole contrivance is a monumental waste of time. It was a joke. We got it. No need to apologize. Let's just hope Tiger has retiefgoosen.com bookmarked so he gets the message. (Crosses fingers.)
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give the guy a break. he looked silly for saying it to begin with when Tiger revealed the injury and he was just trying to make up for it. does every apology have to perfectly worded to get a point across? can't please everybody I guess.
Thank goodness the Tiger worship tour is on hold for a year. If Tiger can't handle jokes from his fellow golfers then stay out of the kitchen.
@George: I haven't heard that Tiger has said anything about Retief's 'joke'. Perhaps a more apt admonishment is to Retief: Next time let your clubs do the talking.