For the first time since his sex scandal broke, Tiger Woods faced the media without any preconditions for 36 minutes.  Frankly it was 3-to-4 months overdue.  If he had been this forthcoming in the early stages of the scandal it probably would have never spun so far out of control.  But he placed the blame for those poor crisis communications decisions on his legal counsel.

I did everything to the letter of the law.  My lawyers gave me some advice and I followed that advice.  I did talk to my sponsors and the people I was close to at various companies.

In other words, he put a greater emphasis on the court of law over the court of public opinion.  In a scandal of personal nature, that proved to be a disastrous choice.  The legal system could never do the amount of destruction that ensued as the scandal picked up steam.

When you consider that much more of Tiger’s massive wealth has been amassed through corporate sponsorships than actually playing golf, you would think Team Tiger would recognize which should be the priority.  Today the most dominant athlete of his generation understands why so many of his sponsors dropped him.

I don’t blame them for dropping me.  All I know is that I acted terribly.

He had similar understanding for the media … at least those who haven’t been stalking the every move of his wife and children.

In 24 hour news, you are looking for just about any news to get out there.  Of course they should have been critical of me and you should because I did some terrible things.

It was the mea culpa where Tiger performed magnificently at the news conference.  Other than avoiding an admission of why he entered rehab (as if anyone in America didn’t already know) he did not sidestep his moral culpability even once in regard to his infidelity.  He did deny any use of human growth hormone (HGH) or performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).  But it was his personal conduct that Tiger freely admitted had stepped way over the line.

The toughest things was having to look at myself in a light I never I wanted to look at myself.  How far I had strayed from core fundamentals & morals of myself.  The way I was thinking was not correct.  I was rationalizing and denying. I was in total denial sometimes.  I lied to myself and I lied to others.  Just because I was winning golf tournaments didn’t mean a thing.  I didn’t realize that until I entered rehab.

What was most impressive is the wisdom that came from Tiger’s lips that would be hard for many folks to comprehend.  Even though he credits Buddhism for his spiritual turnaround, the words he spoke resound with Christianity as well.

Its not about the championships, it is about how you live your life.  Going forward I need to be a better man.

Immediately after the accident, I hadn’t hit far enough on bottom for me to realize how far I had fallen.  I fooled myself.  I lied to a lot of people and deceived a lot of people.  I kept a lot of people in the dark.  I rationalized and I lied to myself. When I stripped it away and I saw the full maginitude of what I’ve done.

And the relief of having the burden of his hidden sin off his back is already having an impact on Tiger’s life.

Have I been winning & competing?  Yeah I have.  But I wasn’t having a lot of fun.  And that’s because of the life I was engaged in.  Now that’s been stripped away and it feels fun again.