So Tiger Woods has chosen the hermetically sealed environment of Augusta National to launch his comeback to golf, and broader public life.

That will come as no great surprise to anyone who's shown a passing interest in the events of the past 110 days, since Tiger's run-in that night with a Florida fire hydrant - and the ensuing geyser which just about washed his public image down a Jupiter Island drain.

Woods has gone to ground and, apart from one or two half-sightings and an occasional appearance on the TMZ celeb website, simply not been seen. In a world teeming with paparazzi, mobile phone cameras, photographers hovering in helicopters and chequebook journalism, that is a remarkable feat in itself - a Lord Lucan impersonation so successful that, in terms of degree of difficulty, it rivals some of his best work on the golf course.

We sensed then from his head-in-the-sand approach that Woods was less interested in explaining his behaviour to millions of fans around the world, and several well-heeled corporate backers, than he was in hunkering down and hoping the whole thing would eventually blow over.

The dead give-away was that dreadful stage-managed, question-free apology last month in which he appeared from behind blue velour curtains into a room that looked like a funeral parlour and read out a statement. Indeed, the handpicked audience of friends and family looked like they might have been farewelling a loved one. And Tiger was the most funereal of the lot, delivering his mea culpa as though it was a eulogy.

I'm not sure which of the wise guys from his IMG entourage dreamed up that stunt, but it didn't work. For most sports fans out there - and I include myself in that broad church - we were looking for something a little more sincere and spontaneous.

I'm not interested in heading up the lynchmob; I'd just like to hear an explanation about what he was thinking; about how he could promote, and profit from, the squeakiest of squeaky clean reputations while leading the most sordid double life with cocktail waitresses, nightclub hostesses and a soft-porn actress.

I mean, I bought a Gillette razor once because Tiger told me they were the best a man can get, and I believed what he said; don't I deserve an explanation?

So, next stop on the Woods redemption journey is Augusta, a place where a geriatric committee of conservative gents, many of whom have had incredibly successful business careers, run the club in the same no-nonsense way some might have run their companies.

There is always the unspoken threat that any reporters who step out of line in any way will not have their press accreditation renewed the following year. Infamously, CBS commentator Gary McCord was stripped of his job in 1995 after describing the 17th green as being so fast it appeared to be ‘'bikini-waxed,'' and that bodybags were located behind that green for players who missed their approach shots.

Measured against language you hear on TV any other night of the week, that wouldn't register a blip on the profanometer. But that's what you get when you cross the Augusta National Tournament committee.

So it is no coincidence this is the place Woods has chosen for his comeback. It is the most controlled environment in professional sport. This is his port in a storm, a place where he - with the help of the committee - can control his media commitments, can ask that his privacy be respected, and can expect a compliant gallery to muzzle any jeers. For any hecklers will given the McCord treatment, as will any reporters brave enough to press him on those events he doesn't want to have to explain.

Maybe he's deluded enough to believe if he wins his fifth Green Jacket - he has been installed as 4/1 favourite, after all - everyone will forget about the small matter of the past five months. That he can continue on with life just where he left off late last November, as if nothing's happened.