Tiger: What his agent knew

Tiger Woods' management team has come under renewed pressure after revelations in Vanity Fair that members of his backroom staff helped facilitate and then cover up the golf star's extramarital affairs.

The 14-page expose in the American magazine casts doubt over Woods' recent insistence that nobody in his inner circle "knew what was going on or when it was going on".

"The Temptation of Tiger Woods", the cover article, features interviews with four of Woods' alleged mistresses.

While Bryon Bell, a long-time friend and the president of Tiger Woods Design, comes across badly, it is the spotlight thrown upon the world No 1's agent, Mark Steinberg, which will cause most intrigue before Woods' reappearance at next week's Masters.

Mindy Lawton, a waitress at a restaurant near Woods' family home in Orlando, claims the golfer put her in touch with Mr Steinberg when she discovered that the National Enquirer knew of their affair. Lawton said that on contacting Mr Steinberg, he told her: "We'll take care of it."

"That's when their brush-under-the-rug, the cover-up, happened," she added, referring to a deal the Enquirer allegedly made to spike the story in exchange for an exclusive Woods interview in a sister publication, Men's Fitness.

As of yesterday, Mr Steinberg had yet to comment, but Woods is certain to be asked in his Monday press conference at Augusta to clarify a statement he made to the Golf Channel in a five-minute interview two weeks ago.

When asked whether "members of your inner circle were involved in your misdoings", he replied: "It was all me. I'm the one who did it. I'm the one who acted the way I acted.

"No one knew what was going on when it was going on. I'm sure if more people would have known in my inner circle, they would have stopped it or tried to put a stop to it. But I kept it all to myself."

Mr Steinberg is "global managing director of golf" at the management giant IMG and is seen as one of the most influential men in the sport. He is an ever-present in the Woods entourage and there will be great surprise if he is not in attendance in the Augusta media room in three days.

Mr Bell is less conspicuous but, as an ally of Woods since their school days, he also plays an important part in "Team Tiger".

Apart from the graphic details of the affairs, Vanity Fair contains claims from a former Woods adviser that he warned his client to avoid Michael Jordan, who, with fellow basketball legend Charles Barkley, is named by Vanity Fair as his gambling companions on his trips to Las Vegas.

Bizarrely blaming Jordan for precipitating Woods' downfall, the lawyer John Merchant said: "I told him, 'Stay away from that son of a bitch [Jordan], because he doesn't have anything to offer to the world in which he lives except playing basketball, which he did yesterday'."

- INDEPENDENT