Augusta National has pushed Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy off the box cover of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12.

Woods has featured on every cover of the game since 1999 and last year shared it with Ulser sensation McIlroy. But with Augusta finally coming to the video game market, the course itself has been given the starring role this year.

According to Eurogamer.com, EA Sports president Peter Moore denies that that the company is trying to disassociate itself from Tiger’s tarnished image.

“We like everybody else that’s involved with Tiger and the game of golf in general, the Augusta club, are all anticipating a great year for golf this year and Tiger being very important in that,” Moore said in response to a question from Eurogamer in a conference call this evening.

“Obviously it was a difficult year last year, but you saw towards the end of the season Tiger starting to get back to his old ways. We all as both a sports industry and sports fans are hopeful he comes back in full force in 2011.

“He is on the PS3 version of the game [Collector’s Edition]. Our focus this year for this particular release is the Masters itself. You can see the iconic flag as part of the box art.

“If the insinuation is it’s a reflection of EA Sports backing away from its relationship that goes back literally 13 years with Tiger, that’s not the case whatsoever. This is obviously a very important day in our history and an important day in the world of golf videogames, and focusing on the Masters is the right thing to do.

“But Tiger is right there on the PS3 version of the game with Move support, which was very good for us and Sony last year. We’ll continue that.

“This is something that’s very special, very different. You shouldn’t read anything into the fact that Tiger’s not featured on the box art of that particular edition.”