Golf: Tiger Woods to break silence

LOS ANGELES - Golf superstar Tiger Woods will break his silence on Saturday (NZT), speaking publicly for the first time since revelations of marital infidelity launched a tabloid firestorm, his agent said today.

The 34-year-old is to speak at 11am Friday local time (5am Sat NZT) from the clubhouse at the TPC Sawgrass, headquarters of the US PGA Tour at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

Agent Mark Steinberg said in a statement that Woods would speak to a "small group of friends, colleagues and close associates" about his past and what he plans next, as well as apologising for his behaviour.

Woods will not take questions, Steinberg said.

"While Tiger feels that what happened is fundamentally a matter between him and his wife, he also recognises that he has hurt and let down a lot of other people who were close to him," the statement posted on Woods' website said. "He also let down his fans. He wants to begin the process of making amends, and that's what he's going to discuss.

"His remarks will be open to a press pool for live coverage. It is NOT a news conference."

Woods' long awaited public appearance will come in the middle of the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona, which started today.

Accenture was one of the sponsors that dropped Woods after the scandal erupted around him in the wake of a mysterious car crash outside his Florida home in the early hours of November 27.

Shortly before Woods' crash, the National Enquirer published a story claiming he had been seeing a nightclub hostess.

After the crash a welter of women claimed they had affairs with Woods.

On December 11, Woods announced he would take an "indefinite break" from golf.

"I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children," the married father of two said in a statement on his website then.

"I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness."

Since then speculation has raged as to Woods' whereabouts, the state of his marriage and just when and where he would make his return.

In January widespread reports placed Woods at a rehabilitation clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he was receiving treatment for sex addiction.

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, who was at the Match Play Championship in Tucson today, declined to speculate on what Woods would have to say, but he welcomed his decision to speak.

"I'm pleased he's going to make some comments," Finchem said, adding that Woods had asked to use the TPC Sawgrass facility.

"We were asked to make the facility available and help with the logistics," Finchem said, although the commissioner said he didn't know what Woods planned to say.

"I'm not going to assume anthing," Finchem said. "Like everybody else, we'll learn what he has to say.

"My sense is that this is part of his schedule and what he's going through. I don't know what he's going to say, what he's going to do after he finishes his rehab."

But Finchem will certainly be on hand to hear what the player who has become the face of the game globally has to say.

"I will be in attendance," Finchem said.

- AFP