ASSOCIATED PRESS: Tiger Woods acknowledged "living a lie," saying he alone was responsible for the sex scandal that caused his downfall and that no one in his inner circle was aware of his misdeeds.
"It was all me. I'm the one who did it. I'm the one who acted the way I acted. No one knew what was going on when it was going on," Woods told the Golf Channel in one of two interviews Sunday night. A second one was aired on ESPN.
"I'm sure if more people would have known in my inner circle, they would have stopped it or tried to put a stop to it. But I kept it all to myself," he said.
Answering questions on camera for the first time since his early morning car crash last November, Woods again provided few details about the crash, his marriage, his stint in a rehabilitation clinic or much of his private life.
"A lot has transpired in my life. A lot of ugly things have happened. ... I've done some pretty bad things in my life," he told ESPN.
Woods also acknowledged more fully than in any of his previous statements that the public ridicule had caused him shame.
"It was hurtful, but then again, you know what? I did it," he told the Golf Channel. "And looking back on it now, with a more clear head, I get it. I can understand why people would say those things. Because you know what? It was disgusting behaviour. It's hard to believe that was me, looking back on it now."
Woods, dressed in golf clothes, was more comfortable and composed than during his only previous public outing. He said he couldn't wait to get back to playing golf, though he had reservations about how he'll be received when he returns to golf next month at the Masters.
"I'm a little nervous about that to be honest with you," he told ESPN. "It would be nice to hear a couple claps here and there."
Woods plans to end more than four months of seclusion and play at Augusta National, one of the most tightly controlled environments in golf. But he said he had no idea what his playing schedule would be after the Masters.
"I will have more treatment and more therapy sessions," he said. "And as far as my schedule going forward, I don't know what I'm going to do. ... But what I know I have to do is become a better person and that begins with going to more treatment."
A number of news outlets had submitted requests to the Woods camp for interviews. Both ESPN and the Golf Channel were notified late last week that Woods would agree to a five-minute interview Sunday afternoon with no restrictions on questions. CBS, which televises the Masters, was also offered an interview but turned it down after being told they would be limited to five minutes of questions.
"Depending on the specifics, we are interested in an extended interview without any restrictions on CBS," spokeswoman LeslieAnne Wade said.
Golf Channel spokesman Dan Higgins said the network felt getting the chance to talk to Woods trumped the time limit. Woods' representatives approached the network on Friday.
An executive with Transitions Optical was not pleased Sunday night that Woods' first interviews may have upstaged the PGA Tour event his company sponsors at the Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club in Palm Harbour, Fla.
The interviews, which were conducted at Isleworth, the gated community in Windermere, Fla., where Woods lives, aired while Jim Furyk was on the 18th green, two putts away from his 14th career PGA Tour victory.
"I would say that given our partnership with the Golf Channel, we are a little bit disappointed that they chose to air that story at the conclusion of a very exciting tournament," said David Cole, managing director for Transitions. "We invest a lot of money in the Transitions Championship as a title sponsor."
Woods asked that the interviews not be aired until the tournament finished. They aired at 7:30 p.m., just as the weather-delayed tournament was coming to an end. Had weather not been a factor, the tournament would have gone off the air at 6 p.m.
Higgins declined to speculate on whether the release of a string of embarrassing text messages from a woman who claimed to be a Woods mistress influenced the timing of the interview.
"I can't speak for them," he said. "I have no idea."
Patti Martin, JerseyShore.MomsLikeMe.com site manager
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