"We're just taking a break right?"

The Hank-Tiger breakup takes on much more clarity after Haney's comments to John Huggan in this week's Scotland On Sunday.

"It was a tough decision, one I went back and forth on many times," said the 54-year old Dallas-based instructor, one day after announcing that he and Woods were finished as teacher and pupil. "I sent him a text. I wished him the best and told him I hope he finds someone else to help him. He first responded, 'thanks.' Then two seconds later he said again, 'we're just taking a break right?' I told him 'no, we're done.'

We're just taking a break? Did Tiger have Hank's number under Joslyn or Jaimee in the phone? Sorry, go on...

When all is said and done, I'm better off out of it. That's the bottom line. It is a huge weight off my shoulders."

Now, I'm still struggling with the notion of a teacher quitting on his pupil at his lowest point, but now we're starting to get the full picture as to why they couldn't go on.

Instead, Woods' typically curt response merely confirmed that the two were "still working together". One day later, his answer to speculation that he was about to fire Haney, was just as disingenuous: "Hank and I talk every day, so nothing has changed."

But even that seemingly simple statement was, in fact, more than debatable. Since the Masters almost a month before, the only contact between the two men had been a pair of short texts. They had not spoken directly and they certainly had not spent time on the practice range. So while the world of golf was privately and publicly slagging off Haney because of Woods' increasingly erratic driving, the reality was that the man getting the blame had had no opportunity to rectify any swing faults. Just one more thing Tiger neglected to mention.

"I wish he had stood up in a press conference and announced, at the very least, that he was sick of all the criticism, that he backed me and that he believed in me," says Haney. "But he never did."

Ahhh...get in line, Hank!