Tiger Woods says sorry for tampon joke

Tiger Woods has apologised for his tampon prank on Justin Thomas during the opening round of the Genesis Invitational.

The 15-time major winner was caught handing a tampon to Thomas after out-driving him on the ninth hole at Riviera on Thursday.

The stunt prompted a furious backlash from many social media users and, after his second round on Friday, Woods attempted to make amends.

“It was supposed to be all fun and games and obviously it hasn’t turned out that way,” said the 47-year-old. “If I offended anybody, it was not the case, it was just friends having fun.

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“As I said, if I offended anybody in any way, shape or form, I’m sorry. It was not intended to be that way.

“We play pranks on one another all the time and I think this did not come across that way, but between us it was — it’s different.”

After closing with three consecutive birdies in round one, Woods finished with back-to-back bogeys on Friday, carding a three-over 74.

That left him one-over after 36 holes and a shot outside the cut line in his first tour start since The 150th Open last summer.

He was in no doubt as to the source of his second round struggles.

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“I did not putt well today,” he admitted. “I blocked a lot of putts early and this is probably the highest score I could have shot today. Probably should have shot five or six better than this easily.

“Just didn’t make the putts early and the middle part of the round when I had those opportunities. And they weren’t very hard putts, I just hit bad putts and obviously had a very bad finish, too.”

Woods also paid tribute to former DP World Tour chief referee John Paramor who passed away on Friday.

Reporters broke the news of Paramor’s passing to the former world No.1 after his round.

“He was one of the all-time best rules officials,” said Woods. “John was around when I first turned pro and had been a staple obviously on the European Tour and all the World Golf Championships, when he came over here and was a rules official.

“He was just a great guy. I’m a little bit taken back by that.