OK, here’s the essence of what el Tigre said:
Standing at a lectern and speaking from a script in a slow, deliberate voice, Mr. Woods said,
“I was unfaithful. I had affairs, I cheated. What I did is not acceptable and I am the only person to blame.”
“I want to say to each of you, simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior.”
Reaction to his pitch was mixed. Some saw it as sincere, some saw it as a control freak’s robotic infomercial — the first step to winning back endorsement deals.
Tiger Woods must stop being a control freak
As always, Tiger Woods sought control on Friday morning.
His scripted apology for marital infidelity offered an unprecedented view of this idol in remorse, choking up, talking about healing himself through Buddhism, taking responsibility for selfishness.
Fundamentally, though, he remained a hermetically sealed champ, making the statement entirely on his own terms, surrounded by a hand-picked audience, speaking as if from a pulpit, and correctly assuming that the media would lap up every unchallenged syllable. The 13-minute speech will pass a humility test only if graded on a steep curve.
Will his fall from corporate grace, his descent from the family-man pedestal, take his game down, too?
Woods has spent the bulk of his life, and all of his professional years, in a bubble of adulation. He took for granted that his fans and his colleagues on the PGA Tour would behave like nobles in a Tudor court, genuflecting to a king whose power left them richer than they could have imagined and more intimidated than they cared to admit.
Now, those fans and fellow golfers routinely speak of him with either pity or disdain.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/20/SPVR1C4GJ3.DTL#ixzz0gAosmPCx
Bottom line: some bought in, some didn’t.
This is how Woods ended his statement: “Finally, there are many people in this room, and there are many people at home, who believed in me. Today I want to ask for your help; I ask you to find room in your heart to one day believe in me again.”
Whew, that’s a tall order. Believe in what?
The squeaky-clean Tiger Woods whom people believed in does not exist.
All that’s left is the two-faced, womanizing, narcissist Tiger Woods.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20100220_Editorial__What_is_there_to_believe_.html
How do you think Tiger did? Awhile ago, I stumbled on “8 simple principles” for making a meaningful apology. A nice grading key …
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Nothing relieves the pain caused by a mistake quite so effectively as a genuine and unconditional apology.
There is simply no way to state strongly enough what a difference it can make in relationships.
The problem with most apologies is that they’re “CPI” — Cheap, Premature, and Incomplete — “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” “Whatever it was that I did, I apologize.”
Here are some simple principles that can make an apology more meaningful.
- Understand first, then apologize. Make sure you really understand what has happened and what part you played in it.
- Talk to everybody involved. It’s not enough that you apologize to the person you hurt directly. You need to apologize as well to the people who know what you did.
- Be specific … so it’s clear that you understand your mistake.
- Apologize unambiguously. Say you’re sorry, and be careful not to qualify it at all. That’s why “I’m sorry if I hurt you” and “I don’t know what I’ve done, but I apologize” don’t cut it.
- Describe how your mistake has affected you. You may realize, for example, that someone you care about deeply has trouble trusting you now. If so, you need to describe that as part of your apology.
- Outline the steps you’re taking to avoid similar mistakes in the future. Concentrate on actual behaviors that other people should be able to observe. Then, walk the talk.
- Affirm yourself. If you don’t think you’re the kind of person who sets out to hurt people, you need to say so. You need to state in clear and explicit terms that you think you’re a better person than this behavior would indicate. You need to describe how you plan to demonstrate that over the days and weeks ahead.
- Ask for forgiveness — but don’t press for it quickly. You may even need to ask the other person explicitly not to forgive you too quickly so that forgiveness, when given, will be complete.
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Warning: just because the principles are simple doesn’t make them easy to apply.
For most of us, they represent a fundamentally different behavior, and changing behavior always feels awkward and uncomfortable at first.
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Excerpted from “Apologize – and Make It Count!”
The Homa Files 
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