Tiger Woods says he's "infinitely" happier now than he was a year ago, just before a Thanksgiving night accident exposed an infidelity scandal that sent his life into turmoil.
He made the statement in a wide-ranging, half-hour interview on ESPN's "Mike and Mike in the Morning" radio show.
"Just more clear, more clear about my perspective, who I am, where I want to go. It's amazing how much better I feel internally each and every day," Woods said. "I wasn't happy with who I was. I was doing things morally, inside, I knew I shouldn't be doing."
He stressed his devotion to his children throughout the interview and also said he's still focused on catching Jack Nicklaus' record 18 major victories.
He also said that fans, his fellow players and their wives have all been supportive of him as he weathered the scandal and his ensuing divorce.
A day earlier, a remorseful Woods admitted in a first-person story he wrote for Newsweek magazine that his dominance in golf made him feel “invincible” and led to the multiple affairs that eventually ended his marriage.
“Golf is a self-centered game, in ways good and bad. So much depends on one’s own abilities,” Woods wrote for the latest issue of Newsweek. “But for me, that self-reliance made me think I could tackle the world by myself. It made me think that if I was successful in golf, then I was invincible.”
Woods was contrite when discussing the effects his infidelity, which came to light when Rachel Uchitel came forward almost a year ago, had on his family.
“I can never truly repair the damage I’ve done, especially to my family. But I can keep trying,” wrote Woods, whose divorce from Elin Nordegren was finalized Aug. 23 and cost the world's No. 2 golfer $110 million. “What endures in the record books are the achievements won through competition. What endures in our actual lives is the love of our family and the respect of others. I know now that some things can and must change with time and effort. I’m not the same man I was a year ago. And that’s a good thing.”
Woods reflects in the story on a sordid lifestyle that came to light after a car accident on Thanksgiving weekend 2009.
“Last November, everything I thought I knew about myself changed abruptly, and what others perceived about me shifted, too,” he wrote. “I had been conducting my personal life in an artificial way—as if detached from the values my upbringing had taught, and that I should have embraced.
“The physical pain from that car accident has long healed. But the pain in my soul is more complex and unsettling; it has been far more difficult to ease—and to understand. But this much is obvious now: my life was out of balance, and my priorities were out of order. I made terrible choices and repeated mistakes. I hurt the people whom I loved the most. And even beyond accepting the consequences and responsibility, there is the ongoing struggle to learn from my failings.”
