Tiger’s acceptance speech

“I was unfaithful,” he said. “I had affairs. I cheated. What I did was not acceptable and I am the only person to blame.”

His mother,Kultida,sat in the front row beside a hand-picked audience at the TPC Sawgrass Clubhouse in Ponte Vedra,Florida,but his wife,Elin,was not in attendance.

Woods broke his silence with this carefully orchestrated news conference in which he took no questions. He outlined his problems in broad,somber strokes.”For all that I have done,” he said,with a pause,“I am so sorry.”

Woods drew a strict line demarcating what he was willing to discuss and what he would not. He said he had never taken performance-enhancing drugs,and he defended his wife by saying that she had never once had a physical altercation with him,nor had there been any domestic abuse in the family.

He emphasised that any queries about his marriage,the circumstances of the car accident and the specific issues for which he requires rehabilitation would remain between him and his wife. He lashed out against the paparazzi who had been tracking his family.

“Please leave my wife and kids alone,” he said,forcefully.

As for his return to golf,he said he would not “rule out this year,” but could not be specific. “I just don’t know when that day will be.”

“I need to regain my balance and be centered,” Woods said,citing his Buddhist faith as giving him strength.

More than once Woods called his actions “foolish and selfish.”

“I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to,” Woods said. “I felt that I had worked hard my entire life,” and that gave him a sense of entitlement.

“I know I have bitterly disappointed all of you,” Woods said. “I have made you question who I am and how I have done the things I did.”

A number of players had objected to the scheduling of Woods’s announcement at PGA Tour headquarters during the WGC-Accenture Match Play tournament being played here this week. Woods apologised to the Accenture — a former sponsor that had dropped him in December — for the timing,saying he was due back in therapy on Saturday.

A spokesman for Accenture said on Thursday that company officials were notified on Wednesday by Mark Steinberg,Woods’s agent,that Woods would make the announcement on Friday. A report earlier in the day in The Orlando Sentinel quoted a PGA Tour player,John Cook,as saying he had received an invitation to the announcement on Monday,which detailed the time and place.