So Much for a Break—Is Tiger Leaving Sex Rehab for the Range?

Rumors swirl that Woods will get sprung from sex rehab this week in advance of high-profile return to sport at tournament later this month

By Gina Serpe Feb 04, 2010 7:35 PMTags
Tiger Woods, Elin WoodsTimothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images

There's no place like home. And Tiger Woods' home is on the rocks range, so it (almost) makes sense that his first move after getting sprung from sex rehab would be to make his professional return on the national stage.

What makes slightly less sense is the fact that his wife, the still ringless Elin Nordegren, would be the one springing him.

Or—and here's where we really stretch the boundaries of sound judgment—that he would choose the Accenture Match Play Championship for his reentry into golf, seeing as how the sponsor was the first major endorser to sever ties with the athlete.

Let's take this one rumor at a time...

RadarOnline is claiming that Woods will be leaving the Pine Grove clinic by the end of the week and that Elin is already at the center's Hattiesburg, Miss., HQ awaiting his release.

Gone, apparently, are the days of solo gas-pumping and fatherless visits to grab takeout. Now, as Radar suggests, Nordegren is willing to give her marriage a second shot.

There's been no official statement from the Woods camp on his supposedly imminent release from rehab, which is hardly surprising, given that there's never been an official statement on his entry.

As for his would-be participation in the Arizona golf tournament this month, those in the know aren't keeping quite as mum.

"We don't know anything official yet, but wouldn't that be nice?" Wade Dunagan, the executive director of the event, told the Arizona Daily Star. "It would mean we'd get Tiger on his return two years in a row. Very cool."

Not to mention redirect a lot of eyes back to a sport that has been left flailing without its marquee athlete.

"The main question is, 'Do I know anything you don't?' " Dunagan said. "The answer is no. We're still a little bit in the dark. I can't confirm or deny anything, because I don't know."

PGA Tour spokesman Chris Reimer said as much, calling reports of the prodigal golfer's return merely "speculation."

"The PGA Tour has no indication of when or where Tiger Woods will be making his return to gold," the group's senior director of communications, Laura Hill, told E! News.

The speculation was triggered by a report in, of all places, Australia's Melbourne Herald Sun, which based its story on "strengthening whispers" that Woods wanted to make his return sooner rather than later, and before the Masters tournament in April.

The Accenture Match Play event runs in Tucson Feb. 17-21.

In the meantime, though, Woods' mistresses continue apace in their bid for wall-to-wall press coverage, no matter how ridiculous.

Just yesterday, mistress No. 6 11 we've lost count, porn star Joslyn James, held a press conference with Gloria Allred to voice displeasure over a Canadian company's decision to market a line of golf balls with the faces of Woods' ladies on them, dubbed "Tail of the Tiger—The Mistress Collection." Classy.

In one of her most outlandish arguments yet, Allred likened the balls' very existence to a vicarious form of domestic violence, saying, "This would be no different than using a picture of a woman's face for target practice."

"This can lead to violence," Joslyn said. "It can lead to violence against women and it must be stopped."

Nice try, Gloria. They can't all be a hole-in-one.

—Additional reporting by Whitney English

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Did you miss them? Us, neither. But now's as good a time as any to brush up on your Tiger mistresses.