Here is what we know for certain. Alarmed at the slow pace of Tiger Woods' recovery from knee surgery, his concerned agents at IMG put the golfer in touch with Dr. Anthony Galea, a Canadian renowned for his extraordinary ability to get NFL and baseball players back on the field fast. Most of his American clients fly to Galea's Toronto offices for treatment but faced with the prospect of adding the world's most famous athlete to his roster, he made house calls to Woods' place in Florida where he performed his favoured technique of blood-spinning on at least four occasions this year.

This involved taking a small sample of Woods' blood, spinning it in a centrifuge to increase the platelets count that accelerates healing, and then re-injecting it into his left knee which was then afflicted by patellar tendinitis. Within days of that first dose, the world number one texted Galea to say his leg felt so good he wanted to jump up on the table. The type of ringing endorsement that explains why NFL quarterbacks and linemen often spend their days off flying up to Canada. Galea's last trip to Woods' house came after he returned from last summer's British Open, complaining of renewed pain. So far, so innocent.

In September, one of Galea's assistants was stopped at the US-Canadian border while carrying the doctor's medical bag in her car. Customs officials discovered Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and a host of other mysteriously labelled drugs inside, and though Galea later claimed the HGH was for his own personal use (he's a 50-year-old who looks about 30), the find prompted an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A further search of his offices yielded Actovegin, a calves' blood derivative that cyclists have been known to use when blood doping, and on Friday, the doctor faced four different charges arising from these discoveries.

This is about the point where the facts end and the speculation begins. There is no evidence that Woods was involved in anything nefarious. The worst that can be said with any degree of certainty about his relationship with the doctor is the World Anti-Doping Association is so concerned about blood-spinning it intends to place restrictions on its use next month. Is Woods just very unlucky then to have his name dragged into one more scandal or does this represent enough circumstantial evidence to place a question mark after his wondrous feats on the golf course?

Well, one of the first developments to cast doubt upon the veracity of Lance Armstrong's achievements was the exposure of his (then) secretive relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari, the Italian physician known within the ranks of professional cycling as "the doping doctor". Much like Galea, Ferrari was popular across a variety of sports, and his defenders used to talk of him as a pioneer, a man ahead of his time in terms of his approach to the science of sport.

The Armstrong example and the fact they've been burned so badly by lying baseball stars in recent years may explain why many American newspapers haven't heeded Woods' agent's plea to "give the kid a break". "What if Tiger Woods cheated at golf?" asked the Chicago Sun-Times baldly the other day. "The Tiger Woods story grows bigger and juicier," announced the Los Angeles Times, with a neat play on the favoured colloquialism for steroids over an article which frankly questioned the nature of Woods' extraordinary physique.

"Two years ago, after following Tiger Woods down the fairway for a couple of days at the U.S Open at Oakmont, I confided to friends an observation that seemed too absurd for public consumption," wrote columnist Bill Plaschke. "From the back, the dude looked like Barry Bonds. His neck was oddly wide. His shoulders were absurdly broad. His biceps were busting out of a tight shirt. For the first time, he wasn't just better than everyone else, he was also bigger. He looked not like a technician lining up a tee shot, but a slugger getting loose for batting practice. He looked weird. He looked stuffed. He looked dirty."

When journalists are discussing their suspicions that openly, the attempt by the PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem to downplay this element of the scandal by declaring he had no reason to be concerned was risible. Either Finchem is lying about his concerns or he's rather foolishly ignoring the media going after Woods on the old principle that if you show me your friends, I'll tell you what you are. Salacious as the cheating stories have been, they pale next to the potential damage here.

In a week when Woods was deservedly voted athlete of the decade for amassing 12 majors, the PGA Tour owes it to him and to the game to at least investigate this. There may not be a fire yet but there is a growing cloud of smoke.

"Anyone who knows PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) knows one of the side effects of anabolic steroid use is a heightened libido," wrote Dr. Gary Gaffney on his blog Steroid Nation this week. "Testosterone is the fuel of the sex drive in males and females. The East German doping machine produced some very hyper-sexual swimmers. And when one thinks of recent athletes who appear to have a huge libido...one has to consider the use of anabolic steroids that may induce such a hyperactive drive."

Bandwagon-jumping or legitimate questioning? Therein lies the rub.

dhannigan@tribune.ie