"Perez went on the SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio show “Katrek & Maginnes on Tap” to clarify his previous comments. Here’s the full interview on Brian Katrek’s and John Maginnes’ show.
The gist was that Perez wanted to note he has major respect for Woods and is still in awe of what he’s accomplished. In fact, Perez, said “it sucks” to see Woods like this and he actually thought the 41-year-old might be done with golf by this time because he had already accomplished too much.
Perez reiterated, though, that at this moment, Woods looks nowhere near ready to play.
“I don’t know what happened with the interview thing, but they said he had to stay horizontal. It’s just common sense. If the guy can’t walk around, how’s he going to play golf?” Perez said. “When you’re Tiger Woods and you’ve beaten everybody for so long, you’re not going to come out and play mediocre. … Why would he do it? He’s been on top his whole life.”
Perez feels it’s unfortunate people have taken his comments the wrong way, and says, if anything, he’s a guy who’s constantly defending Woods.
“I’ve never badmouthed Tiger. I don’t badmouth him,” Perez said. “I stick up for him, even though he would never know that. I argue with people about him.”
Toward the end of the chat Perez possibly quipped(?) “maybe I’ll just cancel my show and all my other stuff so I don’t have to worry about saying something that is just a friendly opinion.”
His closing point unequivocally states his support for Woods even if he’s not sugarcoating the 14-time major champion’s current state.
“Hopefully people can move on and realize that I want to see Tiger come back just like them.”
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