By Torleif Sorenson on 10/23/13

Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee touched off a firestorm with a column in which he hinted at Tiger Woods being a cheater — on the golf course, anyway. Interestingly, on Tuesday afternoon Chamblee told CBS Sports blogger Kyle Porter that he was standing by his comments, refused to back down, and even took a slap at Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg:

"What people want to infer about that is up to them. I have my opinion, they can form theirs.

"I thought it incomprehensible that anyone with the slightest understanding of libel laws wouldn't know the definition of and the difference between libel and opinion."

Sometime on Tuesday evening, Chamblee decided to backpedal:

What brought me here was the realization that my comments inflamed an audience on two sides of an issue.

— brandel chamblee (@chambleebrandel) October 23, 2013

Golf is a gentleman's game and I'm not proud of this debate. I want to apologize to Tiger for this incited discourse.

— brandel chamblee (@chambleebrandel) October 23, 2013

And no - I was not asked to apologize

— brandel chamblee (@chambleebrandel) October 23, 2013

My intention was to note Tiger's rules infractions this year, but comparing that to cheating in grade school went too far.

— brandel chamblee (@chambleebrandel) October 23, 2013

Mr. Chamblee will have to excuse those of us who are not convinced that he was not asked to apologize, given his rather fierce heel-digging just hours earlier.


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