Posted on 02/19/2010 9:16:23 AM PST by MaestroLC
Many of you in this room are my friends. Many of you in this room know me. Many of you have cheered for me or you worked with me or you supported me. Now, every one of you has good reason to be critical of me.
I want to say to each of you simply and directly: I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in.
I know people want to find out how I could be so selfish and so foolish. People want to know how I could have done these things to my wife Elin and to my children, and while I have always tried to be a private person, there are some things I want to say. Elin and I have started the process of discussing the damage caused by my behavior.
As Elin pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not come in the form of words. It will come from my behavior over time. We have a lot to discuss, however what we say to each other will remain between the two of us. I am also aware of the pain my behavior has caused to those of you in this room. I have let you down and I have let down my fans. For many of you, especially my friends, my behavior has been a personal disappointment.
To those of you who work for me: I have let you down personally and professionally.
My behavior has caused considerable worry to my business partners, to everyone involved in my foundation, including my staff, board of directors, sponsors, and most importantly the young students we reach. Our work is more important than ever. Thirteen years ago, my dad and I envisioned helping young people achieve their dreams through education. This work remains unchanged and will continue to grow. From the learning center students in Southern California to the Earlwood stars in Washington, D.C., millions have kids have changed their lives and I am dedicated to making sure that it continues.
But still, I know I have barely disappointed all of you. I have made you question who I am and how I could have done the things I did. I am embarrassed that I have put you in this position. For all that I have done, I am so sorry. I have a lot to atone for, but there is one issue I really want to discuss. Some people have speculated that Elin either hurt or attacked me on Thanksgiving night. It angers me that people would fabricate a story like that. Elin never hit me that night or any other night.
There has never been an episode of domestic violence in our marriage. Ever.
Elin has shown enormous grace and poise throughout this ordeal. Elin deserves praise, not blame. The issue involved here was my repeated, irresponsible behavior. I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did was not acceptable. I am the only person to blame. I stopped living by the core values that I was taught to believe in. I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply. I never thought about who I was hurting, instead I thought only about myself. I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by.
I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn't have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish. I don't get to play by different rules. The same boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me. I brought this shame on myself. I hurt my wife, my kids, my mother, my wife's family, my friends, my foundation, and kids all around the world who admired me. I've had a lot of time to think about what I've done. My failures have made me look at myself in a way I have never wanted to before.
It's now up to me to make amends and that starts by never repeating the mistakes I made. It's up to me to start living a life of integrity. I once heard, and I believe it's true, It's not what you achieve in life that matters, it's what you overcome.
The achievements on the golf course are only part of setting an example. Character, and decency are what really count.
Parents used to point to me as a role model for their kids. I owe all those families a special apology. I want to state to them that I am truly sorry. It's hard to admit that I need help, but I do. For 45 days – from the end of December, I was in in-patient therapy receiving guidance for the issues I'm facing. I have a long way to go.
But I have taken my first steps in the right direction. As I proceed, I understand people have questions. I understand the press wants to ask me the details and the times I was unfaithful.
I understand people want to know whether Elin and I will remain together. Please know, that as far as I'm concerned, every one of these questions and answers is a matter between Elin and me.
These are issues between a husband and a wife. Some people have made up things that never happened. They said I used performance-enhancing drugs. This is completely and utterly false. Some have written things about my family.
Despite the damage I have done, I still believe it is right to shield my family from the public spotlight. They did not do these things. I did.
I have always tried to maintain a private space for my wife and children. They have been kept separate from y sponsors, my commercial endorsements. When my children were born, we only released photographs so that the paparazzi could not chase them.
However, my behavior doesn't make it right for the media to follow my two and a half year old daughter to school and report the school's location. They staked out my wife and they pursued my mom.
Whatever my wrongdoings, for the sake of my family, please leave my wife and kids alone. I recognize I have brought this on myself and I know above all I am the one who needs to change. I owe to my family to become a better person. I owe to those closest to me to become a better man. That's where my focus will be. I have a lot of work to do, and I tend to dedicate myself to doing it.
Part of following this path, for me, is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age.
People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist and I actively practice my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years.
Buddhism teaches that the craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught.
As I move forward, I will continue to receive help because I have learned that's how people really do change. Starting tomorrow, I will leave for more treatment and more therapy. I would like to thank my friends at Accenture and the players in the field this week for understanding why I'm making these remarks today. In therapy, I have learned the importance of looking at my spiritual life and keeping it in balance with my professional life.
I need to regain my balance and be centered so I can save the things that are most important to me: my marriage and my children.
That also means relying on others for help. I learned to seek support from my peers in therapy and I hope someday to return that support to others who are seeking help.
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. When I do return, I need to make my behavior more respectful of the game.
In recent weeks, I have received many thousands of e-mails, letters and phone calls from people expressing good wishes. To everyone who has reached out to me and my family: Thank you. Your encouragement means the world to Elin and me.
I want to thank the PGA Tour, commissioner Finchem, and the players for their patience and understanding while I work on my private life. I look forward to seeing my players on the course.
Today, I want to ask for your help. I ask you to find room in your heart to one day believe in me again. Thank you.
The real tragedy here is Tiger Woods wipes the Austin Terrorist off the front pages and from the important news of the day.
Even our own talk radio. I turn on Rush and he’s talking Tiger. I turn him back on 30 min later, still Tiger. Tried again 1 hour and 15 min into his program, still Tiger. You know Hannity will do the same, as will others.
He must have hired the best script writer he could find. I still don’t believe a word of it.
He is just following the standard Hollywood outline.
Get famous.
Live like a pig.
When caught, go to rehab so you have something to blame your actions on.
Come out and cry a little.
Get on with business as usual.
Nope.
Who cares what Tiger Woods does or doesn’t do? It does not affect me in the least. I wouldn’t walk across the street to see that dirtball any more than I would, to see the poser Obama and his cast of characters.
Surely you are being sarcastic. No, nothing this extremely sleazy happens to the best of us. Tiger Woods is a sociopath. He conned his wife and mistresses, including alleged group sex and a porn actress, and had some of these women in his home when Elin was away. He practiced unsafe sex with no regard to his family and mocked his wife.
Maybe he used steroids, as the LA Times implied.
Does anyone have that picture of him looking like a real thug? Sorry, but that’s how I will continue to see him. As he looked in that shot.
***important news of the day***
Megyn Kelly was interrogating Gloria Allred about her *client* & when Megyn confronted Allred about filing a lawsuit for money - Allred was actually speechless for a good 30 seconds - she mumbled that the mistress is ‘not going to sue for money’ but simply wants a ‘private apology’ because she was told by the married Tiger, who pursued her, that he only loved her and Elin.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. Pathetic.
Ditto that.
Phony crocodile tears.
Actually, I'm thankful he got Obama off the TV for a while. :)
a Gloria Allred exists and we talk Tiger ?
just sayin
Wonder why he doesn’t like black women?
To me, it seems a sincere and forthright apology, that I don’t think he even owed anyone.
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Take it one step further than you have. Why has he made an apology to the world that the world is not owed?
My answer. It’s what he needs to do to get his sponsors back, or at least to get a new crew of sponsors to back him. And part of that will be to get better favorables in polls from the general public.
He did?
he cheated on the cheated or cheatees which is it.
sounds good to me, but why am i here
i think we need some type of distractions to know that we are all shot
He cheated on his girlfriends with his mistresses, and oh yeah, on his wife too.
“Take it one step further than you have. Why has he made an apology to the world that the world is not owed?”
This could devolve into a philosophical discussion about what constitutes ‘the completely selfless act’.
Unless you are unwilling to stipulate that there may have been other motives in addition to the commerically self-interested one you brought up, then there isn’t much to discuss.
I’d certainly agree that AMONG his motivations there were commercially self interested ones. I would also point out that certain people take their commercial commitments seriously, and at the time he was drawing an artificial and delusional line between his conduct in private life, and what he owed his business partners in terms of his public image.
He’s not the first guy in entertainment to cross that line, and he’s one of the few man enough to try to repair that commercial breach with a humiliating public apology.
Newt Gingrich did far worse, in my opinion, and has yet to apologize. I like Newt, but Tiger apologized. If it is the appearance and the fact of impropriety that is the standard here, certainly Newt and other politicians violate that on a daily basis.
I’m not seeing a line form behind Charlie Rangel to resign Congress, for example, for violating that particular standard, and before we start pointing out that Rangel is a liberal, there are plenty of so-called R’s that are in current violation of appearances of impropriety.
Is he motivated by self interest - to be sure, but I think it is just one aspect of his motivation for subjecting himself to this.
He has my respect, and I suppose his actions going forward will bear out either my gullability or support my belief that despite our weaknesses we all have the ability to learn from our idiocy.
Big Earl must be turning in his grave - or is this like father like son...?
Tiger needs less counseling and more fading away...go play golf in Sweden or Tibet...
Same here about “Tigger”. I never like him either.
Before any of this, his reputation for ignoring fans, not signing autographs, never tipping and expecting always to be comped says everything you need to know about this arrogant, selfish, cheap and entitled jerk.
That he fakes a “family man” image for corporate success while carrying on with pornstars is just icing on the cake.
eleni121 wrote: “Big Earl must be turning in his grave - or is this like father like son...?”
Yes it is. Like father like son. Also, Woods has never gotten over hero worship of daddy and grown up.
Apparently Woods likes to intimidate his fellow players. If I was in his group and wanting to put in the needle I would ask him:
“So, was your daddy a lowlife like you, or did you learn all that by your own self?”
The only thing that shocks me is the fact that a few golf announcers didn’t make the list of bimbos. Some of the guys on CBS have serious man-crushes on him.
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