THE WORLD’S top – certainly richest – sportsman has gone into hiding, with some comparing Tiger Woods’s disappearance to that of Howard Hughes.

In the public eye or not, the rumours are flying with tales of the whereabouts of Woods, who hasn’t been seen in public since November 27th: that he is either in a clinic like The Meadows in Arizona for drug or sex addiction; or he has been having reconstructive surgery to fix injuries to his face from the “accident” of a month ago, or even that he is holed up in his house watching cartoons all day.

Interestingly, the New York Postpointed out Woods had been on the cover of that newspaper more consecutive days than 9/11 was, which gives an indication of the insatiable appetite for anything to do with the golfer who is on an indefinite break from the sport.

The other word on the street is that Elin, his wife, but probably soon to be ex, is interviewing different attorneys on the best course of action to take. Time will tell, but a story told by Canadian Mike Weir this week shows there was, well, another side to Woods apart from his on-course dominance and the off-course sexual shenanigans. The man, it would appear, had a sense of humour.

As Weir recalled it, the two golfers were doing a shoot for one of Tiger Woods’s EA Sports video games and Weir was “suiting up” for some computer mapping. “You have to put this suit on and they put all these electrodes over your face and arms to capture the image, so it makes it real in the video game.

“Tiger switched the outfit so it was a ladies, (size) small. So, when I was putting it on, the thing fit me like a bathing suit . . . the director was saying, ‘no, that’s not how you’ve got to put it on’. I could see Tiger around the corner, just rolling and laughing his head off.”

Them were the days.

In truth, there’s little to laugh about. With Woods in hiding, long-time sponsors Nike – who have stood by him during the mess – have taken the decision to launch its new range of Victory Red fairway woods (due to go on sale in the US next Friday) without any promotional input from Woods, whose traditional wearing of red shirts in the final round of tournaments inspired the name. Instead, the promotional material trumpets the fact the clubs were used in play by Lucas Glover, who last season made a breakthrough win in a major when capturing the US Open.

The Wall Street Journalreports Nike's inability to bank on Woods comes at "a problematic time" for them, faced with deteriorating golf sales because of the recession.