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United States News Title: Tiger Woods Apologizes for Infidelity, Unsure When He Will Return to Golf Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Tiger Woods said he had no idea when he would return to golf as he apologized for his marital infidelity and “my repeated irresponsible behavior.” Golf’s 14-time major-tournament winner spoke at the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, the headquarters of the U.S. PGA Tour. He didn’t take questions from media members who were among those present, and hugged his mother, Kultida, after the 13 1/2-minute address, Woods’s first public appearance since a one-car accident outside his home on Nov. 27. Woods said he would return to therapy tomorrow. There was no sign of Woods’s wife, Elin. PGA Commissioner Tim Finchem and Executive Vice President Ty Votaw; and Tiger Woods Foundation President Greg McLaughlin were among about 30 people in the room. “Every one of you has good reason to be critical of me,” Woods, wearing a blue blazer and an open-collared blue shirt, told the group. “I have let you down. I have let down my fans.” Reporters from Bloomberg News, the Associated Press and Reuters were invited. The Golf Writers Association of America boycotted the event. The top player in the World Golf Rankings, the 34-year-old Woods said he would return to the sport that has made him a billionaire but had no timetable. “I will return to golf one day,” Woods said. “I just don’t know when that will be.” Therapy Resumes Woods said his resumption of therapy was the reason for the timing of today’s announcement. Media reports, including TMZ.com, have said that Woods was enrolled in sex-addiction treatment at a clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. “As a human being, everyone has faults and makes a mistake, or sins,” Kultida Woods said in an interview after the address. “We all do. But we move on.” Woods’s nationally televised statement was a “Grade A performance” that will start the process of his public rehabilitation, said Howard J. Rubenstein, a New York-based publicist who had been skeptical of the format beforehand. “He probably surpassed many people’s expectations, in the way he took full responsibility and singled out all the individuals and groups he’s hurt,” said Rubenstein, whose clients include News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. “Going forward, there will still be questions swirling around him, but there will be more people who believe he deserves a break.” ‘Like a Robot’ Ronn Torossian, chief executive officer of 5WPR, which has handled crisis management for celebrity clients including Sean Combs, Pamela Anderson and Snoop Dogg, said Woods “didn’t look at all believable.” “The Tiger Woods brand as we know it will never return,” Torossian said in a telephone interview. “From a PR standpoint, anything he said today could have been said 24 hours after this incident. While it’s all good and dandy that he’s saying he’s deeply sorry, is he deeply sorry for being caught or for having to make these statements? He looked like a robot.” Notah Begay III, a friend and former Stanford University teammate of Woods who has played on the PGA Tour, said today’s apology was heartfelt. “I’ve seen him give 100 public speeches in a variety of different settings, and the sincerity of his apology and the truthfulness in his message was very apparent,” said Begay, who sat in the front row during the address. Initial Statement Woods had said in a statement in December that he had been unfaithful to his wife, announcing then that he was taking an indefinite break from golf. “The issue involved here was my repeated irresponsible behavior,” he said today. “I was unfaithful, I had affairs, I cheated. What I did was not acceptable, and 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 that I could get away with whatever I wanted to.” Woods’s announcement came amid tight security. Everyone in the clubhouse room had to turn off mobile phones 15 minutes before Woods was scheduled to speak. Woods hasn’t played a tournament since announcing on Dec. 11 that he’d take an indefinite break from the game to focus his attention on his family. His decision followed the accident outside of his home near Orlando, Florida, that was quickly followed by the publication of often lurid details about his private life. Privacy Request Two days ago, Woods’s agent, Mark Steinberg, announced his client’s intention to apologize for his behavior and address his past and future. Woods previously asked for privacy to deal with his marital issues, while some of his corporate sponsors ended or modified their relationships with him. Accenture Plc, the consulting company that once hailed Woods as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign, and AT&T Inc. dropped the golfer. TAG Heuer, the Swiss watchmaker owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, said it would scale back its use of Woods, who has earned $1 billion in tournament winnings and sponsorships in his career, according to Forbes magazine. Procter & Gamble Co., based in Cincinnati, said it was phasing him out of its Gillette razor advertising. Woods’s absence has also hit television coverage of U.S. PGA Tour events. Ratings for the first two tournaments of the season, the SBS Championship and Sony Open in Hawaii, fell an average of 27 percent, according to figures provided by the Golf Channel. Ad Cuts Television advertising may also have dropped by as much as 40 percent, said Aaron Cohen, chief media negotiating officer at New York-based ad agency Horizon Media Inc. There have been eight PGA Tour events this year without Woods, whose 71 wins on the world’s richest golf circuit rank second to Sam Snead’s 82. Woods won his last tournament, the Australian Masters, on Nov. 15, his first victory in that country. In December, he was named the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year for the 10th time, after going winless in golf’s four major tournaments for the first time in five years. Two days earlier, he was named Athlete of the Decade by the AP. While Woods failed to capture the Masters Tournament, U.S. Open, British Open or PGA Championship in 2009, he had six victories in 17 PGA Tour events. He also won the season-long FedEx Cup title, which carried a $10 million bonus. Chasing Nicklaus Woods is four wins shy of tying Jack Nicklaus’s mark of 18 titles in the four professional majors. He hasn’t missed the Masters, scheduled for April 8-11 in Augusta, Georgia, since 1995, when he was an amateur. This year’s U.S. Open will be played at California’s Pebble Beach Golf Links, where Woods won the 2000 edition by 15 shots. Trading on all U.S. exchanges declined during Woods’s appearance, falling to 456 million shares from an average of 576.8 million during the five previous 15-minute segments, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. New York Stock Exchange trading fell to about 1 million shares in the minute the speech began, the lowest of the day, then shot to about 6 million when it ended, the highest for any period except just after exchanges opened.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: Brian S (#0)
I heard Trojan is going to sponsor him. Their slogan: Use two because there might be a hole-in-one.
#3. To: Fred Mertz (#1)
LOL!
Their slogan: Use two because there might be a hole-in-one. I also heard that the LPGA is trying to get Elin to join the Pro Ladies Tour. They heard that she beat Tiger and only used a 5 iron.
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