Woods: ‘I have let my family down’
Golfer issues statement to apologise for behaviour to family.
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| Woods has struggled to maintain his privacy in the wake of magazine allegations [AFP] |
World number one golfer Tiger Woods has released a statement in response to recent rumours about his private life following a car crash last Friday morning.
The 33-year old says he has let his family down and regrets ‘those transgressions with all of my heart’.
In the statement on his website Woods says he has not been “true to my values and the behaviour my family deserves.”
His comments came after an American magazine US Weekly magazine published a cover story alleging that a Los Angeles cocktail waitress had a 31-month affair with Woods.
Jaimee Grubbs told the magazine she met Woods at a Las Vegas nightclub the
week after the 2007 Masters – two months before Woods’ wife, Elin Nordegren,
gave birth to their first child.
Grubbs claims to have proof in 300 text messages.
The magazine published revelations about a voicemail provided by Grubbs that she said was left by Woods on November 24, three days before his early morning car crash outside his home near Orlando.
Private life
The 33-year-old American pulled out of this week’s Chevron World Challenge, which he has hosted for nine years, because of injuries sustained after crashing his SUV outside his Florida home in the early hours of Friday morning.
In his statement, Woods did not offer details of any alleged relationship but offered a ‘profound apology’ to his supporters.
“I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves,” he said.
He also said he has been “dismayed to realise the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means.”
Despite the “intense curiosity” about his life, Woods said “there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy.”
Woods continued to say accounts that physical violence played a role in his Friday morning car crash were “utterly false and malicious.”
His statement came one day after the Florida Highway Patrol closed its investigation into the accident – without Woods ever speaking to state troopers. He was charged with careless driving, which carries a $164 fine and four points on his driving record.