Tiger Woods is notorious for having a series of circles - almost reminiscent of Dante's Divine Comedy - that have varying degrees of contact with the world number one and information on his activities. 

Take Mark Calcavecchia, for example.  He told the press that Tiger changed his phone number some handful of times in the last twelve months.  Calc was on the text list, but clearly not on the same text list as Jaimee Grubbs.  See the distinction?

Different people have access to different information.

So then, how is it plausible that four different sources that each purport to have intimate knowledge of Tiger Woods' comeback plans, can reveal two completely different stories in a single day?

First, NY Post golf writer Mark Cannizzaro posted the double headline that Tiger Woods will return at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and has hired Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to The Decider, as his media aide in his comeback bid.

The flaw with that claim is that Fleischer recently worked with the Bowl Championship Series to restore its more-than-tarnished reputation and failed.  Then again, nothing is fixing the BCS except a true playoff system to replace it.

Trailing Tiger contacted Fleischer for comment, but an e-mail message was not responded to yet.

Hours later, AP golf writer Doug Ferguson said that he spoke with two (presumably) different sources with knowledge of Woods' plans that had a new version.  They say Tiger will not return before the Masters, and that it will likely be at Augusta National.

That report makes sense given the relative privacy with which Woods could contest for his fifth Masters title, but is inconsistent with Mark O'Meara's comments that he would be surprised if Tiger didn't play in the Tavistock Cup.

In the last 36 hours, five people have weighed in on Tiger's return plans.  Four of them have been anonymous.  They are all different.  Now, some of the stories could jive.  O'Meara could be right that Tiger will play Tavistock and Bay Hill.  It could be just Tavistock or just Bay Hill.  Could be Tavistock then the Masters, but that is crazy talk.  Could be all three.

The point is that there are probably four people who actually know what Tiger is planning to do next: himself, his wife (so she can track him with an ankle bracelet GPS), his mom, and his agent.  That is all.  Unless any four of those people were the anonymous sources to the Post, the AP, or the Martian Times, then I'm still in doubt as to what will actually happen.