Woods: Ball in the court of Golf Channel

Tiger Woods put the heat on the Golf Channel over analyst Brandel Chamblee’s insinuation of him cheating.

Woods said yesterday that he was ready to move forward and that now it was up to what Golf Channel was prepared to do.

Woods spoke publicly for the first time since Chamblee, a long time critic of the world number one, wrote a column for SI Plus in which he gave Woods an ‘F’ for his five-win season because of a series of rules violations.

Chamblee wrote that Woods was ‘a little cavalier with the rules,’ and he made the analogy of the time his fourth-grade teacher crossed out ‘100’ and gave him an ‘F’ for cheating on a math test.

Chamblee last week went on twitter to say the cheating comparison went too far, and he apologised to Woods for ‘this incited discourse.’

“All I am going to say is that I know I am going forward,” Woods said before his exhibition match with Rory McIlroy at Mission Hills (which he lost). “But then, I don’t know what the Golf Channel is going to do. That’s up to them.

“The whole issue has been very disappointing as he didn’t really apologise and he sort of re-ignited the whole situation. So the ball really is in the court of the Golf Channel and what they are prepared to do.”

Golf Channel chiefs have not commented on the flap. Chamblee is an analyst, but he wrote his column about Woods as a contributor to another publication. Chamblee has said he was not asked by anyone to apologise.

Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, was so incensed by the column that he issued a statement to ESPN.com that raised the possibility of legal action.

Woods accepted a two-shot penalty in Abu Dhabi for taking relief from an embedded ball in a sandy area covered with vegetation. Augusta National gave him a two-shot penalty for taking the wrong drop in the second round of the Masters. And the PGA Tour gave him a two-shot penalty after his second round of the BMW Championship when video evidence showed that his ball moved slightly from behind the first green. Even after watching the video, Woods insisted his ball only oscillated.

Also in question — at least on Internet blogs — was the drop Woods took on the 14th hole of the TPC Sawgrass during the final round of The Players Championship. Woods checked with playing partner Casey Wittenberg on where to take the penalty drop, which is standard procedure. Wittenberg said it was the correct spot.