Tiger Woods Breaks Silence and Issues Apology

NEW YORK TIMES
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — In his first public appearance after the November head-on collision of his squeaky clean image and an unsavory secret life, Tiger Woods was somber in expressing remorse, stern in scolding the news media for stalking his family and reporting untruths, and spiritual in saying he had drifted from the Buddhist principles he was taught as a child.

In front of about 40 inner-circle people that included his mother, Kultida, but not his wife, Elin, along with a national television audience, Woods made his most direct statement about admitted infidelities in his marriage. “I had affairs,” he said. “I was unfaithful. I cheated.”

Woods said he had mistakenly believed that his enormous success and celebrity made him entitled “to enjoy all the temptations around me.” He added: “I was wrong. I was foolish. I don’t get to play by different rules.”

While creating the impression that his marriage hung in the balance, Woods vigorously defended his wife and denied reports and speculation that domestic violence had played a role in the episode outside his home in the early-morning hours on Nov. 27 that resulted in Woods’s crashing his sport utility vehicle into a fire hydrant and a neighbor’s tree in the gated community of Isleworth near Orlando.

Acknowledging reports that he had undergone counseling for 45 days, Woods said he would continue the treatment beginning Saturday. He did not reveal the nature of the counseling. Woods also did not address a return to the PGA Tour until near the end of his statement, saying: “I do plan to return to golf one day, I just don’t know when that day will be. I don’t rule out that it will be this year.”

In the back row sat Tour officials. Woods’s mother was in the front, flanked by two Woods employees, Amy Reynolds and Kathy Battaglia. Nearby was his former college roommate at Stanford, Notah Begay III, a golfer on the PGA Tour. Woods spoke in a calm, measured tone, beginning by addressing the unthreatening environment he had insisted on. “Many of you in this room are my friends,” he said. “Many of you in this room know me. Many of you have cheered me or you’ve worked for me or you’ve supported me.”

He paused and added, “Now every one of you has good reason to be critical of me.” He proceeded to lambaste himself as “selfish” and “foolish.” He said he had betrayed his carefully crafted image as a person to look up to.

“Parents used to point to me as a role model for their kids,” he said. “I owe all those families a special apology. I want to say to them that I am truly sorry.”

How Woods’s first step will play to the audience at large remains to be seen, but two companies — Upper Deck and TAG Heuer — released statements saying that they were encouraged by Woods’s statement and that their relationships with him would continue.

The strongest support for Woods came from Kultida Woods, who tearfully embraced her emotional son when he finished his statement. “I’m so proud to be his mom, period,” she said. “As a human being, everyone has faults, makes missteps and learns from it.”

In the weeks and months ahead, even after he returns to the sport he has dominated for years, Woods’s sincerity will be debated over and over. But however staged his statement, there was one undeniable truth spoken by Woods regarding the state of his marriage and his reputation as he tries to go forward. It was a profound message he said came from his wife, not a speechwriter. “As Elin pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not come in the form of words,” he said. “It will come from my behavior over time.”