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2 golf officials say Tiger Woods DIDN'T lie about distracting Sergio Garcia during a shot

It’s all getting very silly at this point

TWO GOLF MARSHALS who were on the course during the Tiger Woods-Sergio Garcia “distraction” controversy on Saturday say Tiger isn’t lying about how the events went down.

A quick refresher on the saga: After Sergio mis-hit a shot on the second hole, he blamed it on Tiger, saying Tiger distracted him by taking a 5-wood out of his bag during Sergio’s backswing.

Tiger admitted that he took out the 5-wood after the round, but deflected blame by saying that a golf marshal told him Sergio had already played his shot.

Yesterday, two marshals told Michael Bamberger of Sports Illustrated that Tiger lied about that. They say they never spoke to Tiger before the shot. One even said, “It lacked character,” for Tiger to throw them under the bus when the conversation never happened.

But now, in yet another turn, two new golf marshals — Brian Nedreich and Lance Paczkowski— have come forward and claimed that Tiger isn’t lying, he is just mixing up the sequence of events.

From the Garry Smits of the Florida Times-Union:

Nedrich, who said he could barely see Garcia, got a glimpse of him swinging, then saw the ball in the air. When fans behind Woods began to stir, Paczkowski, his view of Garcia blocked by bushes, tried to quiet them and said, “the other player [Garcia] hasn’t hit yet.”

“That’s when I yelled back at Lance, ‘No … he’s already hit,’” Nedrich said. “Tiger had already taken his club, but we did tell him that Sergio had hit.”

Tiger’s exact quote was, “The marshal told me he already hit so I pulled the club and was getting ready to play my shot.”

These two marshals are saying they did, in fact, tell him Sergio had already hit. So he didn’t completely make up the conversation — which is what the other, competing marshals told SI yesterday. He just said the conversation happened after he pulled the club rather than before he pulled the club.

It’s all getting very silly at this point. We will probably never get the full story unless Tiger really elaborates on it at some future date.

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