Woods hit by more lurid claims

Washington:

The tabloid storm enveloping Tiger Woods gathered strength on Monday with more lurid revelations from supposed mistresses and claims of million-dollar payoffs to cover up a string of alleged affairs.

Please from the world's number one golfer to be left alone after confessing earlier this week to "personal sins" were ignored as Britain's tabloid press got in on the act and a raft of new allegations surfaced.

The News of the World, Britain's top-selling tabloid, published an interview with a restaurant manager who claimed to have slept with the golf star at his Orlando, Florida home.

The weekly newspaper alleged that Mindy Lawton, 33, was the first of his known affairs but that she was dumped by the golf star in early 2007 when he began seeing 24-year-old cocktail waitress Jaimee Grubbs.

Britain's Sunday Mirror reported that Woods had also had a fling with 26-year-old model Jamie Jungers in a Las Vegas hotel, but the source for the tabloid's claim was the woman's former fiance.

A US tabloid, The New York Daily News, linked Woods to a sixth woman, Cori Rist, who was quoted as saying she had: "No comment... Not at this time."

Woods, 33, apologised on Wednesday for "transgressions" in his family life as a magazine posted what it said was evidence of an extra-marital affair between him and Grubbs.