I've read and heard the same thing.
About 10 years ago i had the same problem. What we call in Germany a "soft groin" is basiclly the same as a sports hernia. Before i had surgery i informed myself about possible treatments and there are basically only two ways to treat this injury (operativ).
First one is a new method and it's based on minimal invasive surgery. The surgeon only has to make 2 small cuts both about 1/2 inch long. Through those holes he implants two (or one if your sports hernia is only on one side) meshes at the area of your groin. The The tissue will grow through thoses meshes and they will strengthen the (too) weak tissue.
The advantages from that kind of surgery are that it can be performed abulant and you can leave the doctor at the same day. There is barley pain and therefore you can start working out much sooner. Also sports hernia has always genetic roots. If you have a sports hernia that means that you have weak conjunctive tissue. With this kind of surgery it basically guaranties you to never have a sports hernia again.
Disadvantages are that there is no long term experience with what happens to that mesh and the titanium with which it is attached to the tissue. The mesh can never be removed once the tissue has grown through it. This kind of surgery is now only about 20 years old.
The other possible kind of surgery is the so called "traditional" form of hernia surgery. Basically the tissue will be cut and the layers (especially the muscles) will be sewed together again. Afaik the tissue will be sewed also to the bones of the pelvis.
I myself had the second kind of surgery to both sides at one time. And i can tell you there is no way you can make any kind of sports after 3-4 weeks. You can be happy to have sex after 2-3 weeks again ;-).
The doctors told me that i can start lifting weights again after about 6 weeks. I couldn't. I started light jogging after about 5 weeks and weight lifting after maybe 8-9 weeks.
This was also a head thing for me. When you do squads you rely heavily on your abdominal muscles and believe me knowing you got cut down there you wont push yourself to the limit without good testing.
Anyway i don't know much about TNEWs surgery and i don't know much about his real injury. I don't want to paint things black maybe he will be back after 4 weeks. But i just can't imagine.
Maybe these "4 weeks" are just a misunderstanding and it was meant that he could start training again after 4 weeks. Or maybe there is really another kind of surgery i don't know of. Which again i really doubt because a groin injury or a hernia is a straught forward thing to treat afaik.