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EA Sports has denied it has dropped Tiger Woods from the front cover of his own video game.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour has been one of the most popular video game series over the last decade.

The front cover of every edition, apart from last year when he shared it with Rory McIlroy, has been dominated by Woods.

Every edition apart from the latest one, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12, due out in the spring.

It comes after a tough year for the golfing superstar.

After publicly revealing a number of affairs he split from his wife and mother of his two children, Elin Nordegren.

Professionally, he lost his world number one spot to Lee Westwood as well as a string of lucrative endorsements worth millions of pounds each year.

Companies like Pepsi, Accenture, AT&T, Gatorade and Gillette decided they no longer wanted to be associated with the golfer.

'Standing by Woods'

Also, for the first time since turning professional in 1996, Tiger did not win a tournament throughout the whole of 2010.

But despite deciding not to feature him on this year's cover, EA Sports President Peter Moore insisted the company was standing by the golfer.

"If the insinuation is... EA Sports backing away from its relationship that goes back literally 13 years with Tiger, that's not the case whatsoever."

Instead he said it was merely a reflection of a new golf course featured in the game and on the cover.

"This year's iteration of the game is all about celebrating the Masters and the inclusion of the historic Augusta National Golf Course in the game".

It is due to hit shelves in the UK in April and will be available on the Wii, Xbox and PS3 consoles.