TIGER WOODS, the world’s first billionaire sportsman whose personal life was thrown in turmoil after he exposed as a serial adulterer, yesterday marked his return to the public eye at this week’s US Masters tournament with an apology to his fellow players for his behaviour and a denial that he had ever used performance enhancing drugs.
Yesterday’s press conference at Augusta National Golf Club was the hottest ticket in town. Woods, returning to competition for the first time in five months since the revelations about his numerous affairs came to light, breezed in the front door, hugged a couple of green jackets – Augusta members – like long lost friends, and then faced his inquisitors for 40 minutes.
Woods, who did not admit the nature of his addiction which led him to spend 45 days in rehab therapy, took responsibility for his actions in what he agreed amounted to “a secret life”.
He said: “Unfortunately, what I’ve done over the past years has been just terrible to my family. It is the pain and the damage that I’ve caused . . . winning golf tournaments through all of this is irrelevant compared to the damage I’ve caused.”
The rehabilitation programme undertaken by Woods forced him, he said, “to take a hard look at myself, and I did, and I’ve come out better. I’m certainly a much better person for it than I was going in. Does that mean I’m ever going to stop doing that? No. I’ve got to still continue with my treatment. That’s going forward, that’s not going to stop in the near future for sure. I lied to a lot of people, deceived a lot of people. I fooled myself as well. The full magnitude of it, it’s pretty brutal.”
Woods denied ever receiving HGH (Human Growth Hormone) treatment from a Canadian doctor, Anthony Galea, who is under investigation by the US federal authorities.
He did admit receiving PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) injections from the doctor, who visited the golfer in his Florida home to aid his recovery from knee surgery and an Achilles tendon injury he first sustained in 2008 and which recurred in 2009.If he does manage to win the Green Jacket at the Masters this week, one person won’t be on hand to celebrate with him. His wife, Elin , won’t be present.