Steve Williams has angrily claimed that he was misrepresented by his own publishers as the row continued to smoulder over his outspoken memoir about caddying for Tiger Woods - in which he alleged that the former world No?1 treated him like a "slave".
The New Zealander claimed publishers did not tell him they would use the controversial paragraph in excerpts released this week from his biography Out Of The Rough.
"It's disappointing they chose that one piece of the book," he said. "I don't agree that it should have been used. It's one word, one sentence, out of a whole book."
That single incendiary "slave" remark has ignited a heated debate about the player-caddie relationship, and whether he should have committed such memories to print at all. Adam Scott, who continues to employ Williams for seven tournaments a season, suggested here, at the HSBC Champions at Sheshan, that he would be uneasy about any notion of the caddie releasing a sequel about their time together.
"I'm going to be on my best behaviour, so that there isn't one," the Australian said.
Several of Williams's colleagues have privately argued that he has betrayed the commitment to confidentiality that caddies are supposed to keep.
Michael Greller, the former maths teacher who has carried Jordan Spieth's bag in 2015, would be unlikely even to contemplate such a book project. "If he ever did, I hope it would be good," Spieth remarked yesterday. "We would have to have a lot of success for that even to be a possibility."
Greller, who graduated from teaching in Seattle to being the closest confidant to the most extraordinary young golfer on the planet, is not cut from the same cloth as the brash Williams. He was named Caddie of the Year this week, as a reflection of his unheralded work in supporting Spieth. "I trust him as the best in the world and he trusts me," Spieth said.
In the absence of Woods, recovering in the US from further surgery on his back, the stage in Shanghai has been left to the next generation of American talent.
In the final World Golf Championship of the year, Kevin Kisner reached 14 under par to open a two-shot lead over Scot Russell Knox, despite blustery conditions that yielded only 16 rounds in the 60s.
Ten strokes back were Spieth and Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy, both fighting to reduce the gap to world No?1 Jason Day, who has stayed in Australia to await the birth of his second child.
McIlroy, who shot 72, continued to look flat and fatigued as he recovered from a food poisoning episode that has caused him to lose 10lb in weight.