SEALs spokesman Capt. William Fenick told foxsports.com that Woods had visited the Naval Special Warfare Center on Coronado Island, Calif. "on a couple of occasions."
Fenick characterized Woods visit to the camp as a "walk and talk."
This is in stark contrast to Woods' former coach Hank Haney's assertion in his upcoming book, "The Big Miss," that the golfer was obsessed with becoming a SEAL and undertook "a program that approximated the training for a Navy SEAL candidate."
"The purpose was sort of a dry run to determine whether he could physically and mentally handle the demands," writes Haney.
No wonder Woods got so testy at that press conference yesterday when he was asked about the book— due to hit stores March 27, right before the Masters.
Fenick added that Woods did come to the camp but visits by celebrities are not uncommon and the SEALS are more obliged to accommodate requests from people of high visibility.
"We did give him the opportunity to shoot a couple of guns at out range but as for reports that he was doing SEALs training, he didn't do that with us," said Fenick.
In his book, Haney goes on to write: "To my knowledge, he [Tiger Woods] did train in parachuting, self-defense, urban-warfare simulations and shooting."
The portrait of Tiger being painted by Haney sounds a lot grander than Fenick's.
The Navy captain depicted Woods' visit to the base as ordinary in the sense that other persons— including CEOs and actors— have made similar trips to the SEALs base in order to get a better understanding of what the elite special forces group does.
Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg, claims Haney has twisted the legendary golfer's words into what he called "something negative."
No comments:
Post a Comment