Tiger Woods Tells ESPN His Wife and Mom Were 'Brutal'

March 21, 2010— -- Tiger Woods' wife and mother were "brutal" on him after numerous women claimed to have had affairs with him, a sex scandal the rocked the sports world and his marriage, and led him to take a hiatus from the game he ruled, the golfer said today in an interview with ESPN.

"They both have been brutal," Woods, who announced last week that he is returning to golf at the Masters next month, said of his wife, former model Elin Nordegren, and his mother, Kultida Woods.

"They've both been very tough. Because I hurt them the most. Those are the two people in my life who I'm closest to and to say the things that I've done, truthfully to them, is ... honestly ... was ... very painful," Woods said.

"I had gotten away from my core values as I said earlier. I'd gotten away from my Buddhism. And I quit meditating, I quit doing all the things that my Mom and Dad had taught me. And as I said earlier in my statement, I felt entitled, and that is not how I was raised," he said.

Woods did not say what exactly he spent 45 days in treatment for, saying only it was "a private matter," but he said he had more outpatient treatment ahead, and felt stronger than before.

"I was living a life of a lie, I really was. And I was doing a lot of things, like I said, that hurt a lot of people. And stripping away denial and rationalization you start coming to the truth of who you really are and that can be very ugly. But then again, when you face it and you start conquering it and you start living up to it, the strength that I feel now ... I've never felt that type of strength.

"I can't believe I actually did that to the people I loved," he said.

After a nearly five-month self-imposed hiatus from the sport following the shocking infidelity scandal, Woods announced Tuesday he would make his return at golf's most prestigious event, the Masters in Augusta, Ga., on April 8.