Tiger Woods isn’t ready to golf yet … and apparently, he ain’t ready to talk about the sport on TV yet either.
The sport’s biggest star — who’s still recovering from a gnarly February car crash — declined an offer from NBC Sports to help break down next week’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in CA, according to broadcaster Dan Hicks.
“We were all thinking how good that would be, who better, if he couldn’t be there to play it, to voice it and have him a part of the show, but we were rebuffed,” Hicks told media members Wednesday ahead of the event’s June 17 start date.
“He didn’t want to do it, and I totally understand his situation. There is a lot going on in his world right now and there’s also a part of Tiger that doesn’t want to become this, I don’t want to, for lack of a better word, a sideshow at an event where we should be concentrating on what’s happening.”
Hicks added, “I understand that what’s going on in his world that he wanted to kind of keep it low-key and stay out of the limelight for this one and just hopefully he’ll enjoy it at home watching it on TV.”
Tiger — who won the U.S. Open the last time Torrey Pines hosted the event back in 2008 — has avoided the spotlight ever since he crashed his ride in Los Angeles County on Feb. 23.
He’s hardly spoken about the incident — revealing only that rehab has been “more painful than anything I have ever experienced” — and he’s only posted one picture of himself since the crash.
As we previously reported, Tiger shattered multiple bones in his leg and required several complicated surgeries and a metal stabilizing rod to fix the issues.
It remains unclear if Woods will ever play competitive golf again.