Tiger Deactivating His Game To Spend More Time With His Game

In Tiger's exclusive to TigerWoods.com the headline writer seemingly didn't know how to interpret the copy: "His back feeling better, Tiger plans to work on his game and play again soon."

But the short item (and Tweet) by Tiger lays the groundwork for not playing again anytime soon. Maybe.

Right now, I need a lot of work on my game, and to still spend time with the people that are important to me. My play, and scores, are not acceptable for tournament golf. Like I've said, I enter a tournament to compete at the highest level, and when I think I'm ready, I'll be back. Next week I will practice at Medalist and at home getting ready for the rest of the year. I am committed to getting back to the pinnacle of my game. I'd like to play The Honda Classic -- it's a tournament in my hometown and it's important to me -- but I won't be there unless my game is tournament-ready. That's not fair to anyone. I do, however, expect to be playing again very soon.

Woods appears to be preparing cynics and videographers of the world for an appearance of Lindsey Vonn's downhill competition and charity fundraiser Saturday night.

Then he's letting the range staff at Medalist know he'll be out next week, so pack up any of the mirrors or glass objects within 30 yards of the practice green. Shoot, no ball pyramids either. Too embarrassing when you take those out, too.

And finally, he'd love to play the Honda but by golly, it's probably not in the cards.

Beyond that? Who knows and as Darren Rovell notes, the only people who truly care are the sports books in Vegas taking prop bets from the true believers.

A "leave of absence" phrase--not in the statement--made many early appearances on Twitter and on golf.com's item, but agent Mark Steinberg tells ESPN.com's Bob Harig that is not the case.

"Nowhere did we say it was a leave of absence," Steinberg said. "He's going to work on his game and when his game is back to form ... his game was in bad shape when he made swing changes in the past. He needs to work on this away from a public setting. He needs to work on this on his own."

Golfweek.com's Jim McCabe on the statement:

All in all, it seemed to be a rather confounding statement, one that was hardly definitive, nor did it go into details about “the latest injury,” he mentioned.

Brandel Chamblee talked to Rich Lerner on Golf Central and called the decision “predictable.”

Ernie Els, returning to Pebble Beach for the AT&T says he is not relishing seeing what Tiger has become, reports Doug Ferguson.

"As competitive as we are, we don't want to see anyone suffer like that," said Els, who has finished second to Woods more than any other player. "We've got to do our stuff in public. I don't care if you're Tiger Woods, Ernie Els or whoever. If you have some error in your game, you get exposed."

Ryan Lavner notes at GolfChannel.com that the deadline to commit to the Honda Classic is February 20th, and shares this from Woods life-coach Notah Begay.

“I don’t think this is an issue of physical limitations,” Woods' close friend Notah Begay III said on “Golf Central”. “It’s an issue of trying to get this short-game thing worked out and then … carrying it over into tournament golf.”

Randall Mell of GolfChannel.com concludes...

The news today, as best we can surmise, is that Tiger is pulling away from the game, in some sort of way that differs from his usual breaks. Why else pen a story like this and tweet it out?