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Inside the room with Tiger
Published: 2/19/2010 8:52 PM
Last Modified: 2/19/2010 8:52 PM

What was it like inside the room when Tiger Woods faced the world on Friday?

I'm not going to pretend this is a blog written by me. Rather, I did a cut-and-paste from an email sent Friday by the PGA Tour folks. The content of the e-mail was something written by a pool reporter (from Reuters news service) who witnessed Tiger's infomercial. I just thought readers would find the raw, uncut pool report interesting. Here it is, verbatim:

Around 40 people including PGA tour executives, Wood's agent, his mother Kultida, sat gathered in three tiers of wooden chairs set in an arc, waiting for him to arrive. The blinds covering the three windows in the room were shut. There was total hush as all eyes turned to a break in the heavy blue drapes. Just the buzz of a helicopter overhead. Then followed his solemn apology, the text of which is already available.

--After the event, Woods' mother Kultida spoke to reporters.

“You know what? I’m so proud to be his mother. Period. This thing, it teaches him, just like golf. When he changes a swing… he wants to get better… He will start getting better… it’s just like that. Golf is just like life, when you make a mistake, you learn from your mistake and move on stronger. That’s the way he is.”

“As a human being everyone has faults, makes mistakes and sins. We all do. But, we move on when we make a mistake and learn from it. I am upset the way media treated him like he’s a criminal…he didn’t kill anybody, he didn’t do anything illegal… They’ve being carrying on from thanksgiving until now, that’s not right!” she said

“People don’t understand that Tiger has a very good heart and soul,” she said, citing the role of his foundation in helping kids and also in Thailand. “Sometimes I think there is a complete double standard… He tried to improve himself.”

“The tabloids and newspapers just killed him, held him back.. To me it looked like a double standard…"

Is it the hardest thing he’ll ever go through? “Yes… When you make a mistake you learn from it and move on, that’s the way life is, that’s a human being. We're not good, and he never claimed he was God. If anyone tells me to condemn him, I say look at yourself first.. .. I would … look in their eyes and tell them you’re not God!”

What are your emotions? “Upset… This thing is a family matter… It’s not easy to be him. … (People) go to work 8 to 5 and go home to have a life with the family. Tiger can’t do that.” “You have to look at human side, human make mistake, he not God.”

How will Buddhism help? “Buddhism teaches you to go deep inside your soul and look through from himself, and correct the bad thing to be a good thing… When he realized, he said okay, and went back to practice Buddhism and that will make him a much better person…


--Tim Finchem, of the PGA

“I thought it was a good step. I thought he did a very good job of communicating the way he thought and what he thinks about where he is…. It’s good that he’s taking this step as a way to return to public life, and I certainly thought that it was an effective step.”

What of his return to golf? “We’re supportive of whenever he comes back, whether it’s three weeks from now, or three months from now, that’s less important than when he comes back, he’s prepared to play to resume his career in a positive way so that he’s there for the long haul.”

"I don’t know when he is going to return, I think the important thing is that … he is prepared to play. As he has indicated, he needs to make progress with these issues until a level that he is comfortable with.”

How is the tour doing with him? “He’s been out before, he was out when his father passed away a few years ago, he was out with his injury in 2008. … Obviously in the tournaments he plays in obviously that increases the revenue significantly, plus there’s this intangible … he’s the number one player in the game, and it just brings a lot of attention to the sport to have the number one player involved, whether he’s playing that particular week or not, but when he’s on the sidelines that’s a negative. But we’re performing well, as well as we did in ’08 when he was out with his injuries.”

--Notah Begay, PGA golfer and friend of Tigers from Stanford days.

“It was just a heartfelt apology to so many different people… I was emotional and got a little choked up. Any time you see a good friend kind of suffering and taking on a tremendous amount of responsibility and having to be held accountable for actions that nobody would condone or approve, but at the same time it’s a matter that should be handled privately between him and his wife.”

How much does Begay expect him to change?

"It's a little bit harder than making a swing change."

"The sincerity of his remarks and the thoughtfulness in his message was very apparent."

How serious is he about remaking his life?

“It’s tough to get any man in America just to go marriage counseling let alone go into a 45-day rehabilitation. Plus he’s going back tomorrow, and that tells me that he’s trying to learn about the issues. … He’s trying to learn about the though processes that caused the actions, so that he can cut them off next time.”



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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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