Silence No More

The man has spoken. After almost three months of silence, Tiger Woods apologized at 11:00 am today for all of his wrongdoings and for cheating on his wife, Elin. Golf's most renown player made the 13-minute speech in Ponte Vedra, Florida in the middle of the third round of the WGC- Accenture Match Play Championship. There were a few circumstances that made this speech different: for one, there were no questions at all. Also, approximately 40 people attended the speech, but they were all invited. The spectators consisted of his friends, family, PGA commissioner Tim Finchem and select media from the TPC Sawgrass, but his wife, Elin, did not attend. Accenture was the first sponsor to drop Tiger after his car accident on Thanksgiving night that was the beginning of a gruesome three-month period for Tiger, which is still ongoing. There were many speculations that Tiger chose to speak during the Accenture tournament to get back at them for dropping him. Nonetheless, Tiger definitely took a step in the right direction today.

Now Tiger Woods did read off a good amount of the speech, but overall, I think he did a good job presenting this. Many broadcasters on TV have been saying how he didn't need to apologize, but I think his apologies made people feel how honest he really was being. In my opinion, everything he said came from the heart. He covered topics from his family to his treatment and therapy. One of the aspects of this speech that I thought was good was that it did not primarily focus on golf; it focused on his mistakes. He did say he is not sure when he will return to golf, but quickly moved past that thought. He needs to concentrate on his family and rehabilitation before he worries about golf. Although this public address was very limited, this was necessary for Tiger to start over again. Now, he can take the next step to getting his life back to normal.