Tiger Talks: No Revelations But A Sense Of Shame

It wasn't Oprah and it wasn't '60 Minutes' that nabbed the first Tiger Woods' interviews but The Golf Channel and ESPN, which ran concurrent interviews on Sunday evening.

According to reports, each was limited to five minutes but there were no restrictions on the questions asked by The Golf Channel's Kelly Tilghman and ESPN's Tom Rinaldi.

The result?

Neither produced any great revelations but they did provide another glimpse of Tiger as he readies himself to return to the public stage at the Masters in three weeks. In both interviews, he put all the blame on himself, admitted his treatment is ongoing and stopped short of explaining what happened on the night of his accident when his world began coming apart.

Even in as controlled a setting as the interviews were, confessing the shame you brought on yourself and your family must be wrenching.

It seems clear that Tiger isn't going to go into the details of his Thanksgiving weekend accident, using police reports to answer the quetions for him. Those, of course, don't answer the personal side of what was happening but Woods is intent on keeping that between himself and his wife.

When he sits down for a mass interview, I expect he'll still get peppered with questions about the accident and he will continue to deflect them. He will only go so far with his answers. It won't be far enough for many.

He admitted, again, that he let his wife, his mother, his family and others, including himself, down. He sounded like a man who understood the consequences of what he has done and understands the difficulty of his road back.

I expect when he submits to other interviews, the answers will be similar to the ones we heard over the weekend. He will avoid details, citing personal privacy but he will accept all the blame anyone wants to heap on him.

Tiger admitted he's nervous about returning at the Masters and I'm guessing he's more nervous than he'll let on. He's said in the past that he's never gotten completely comfortable with people looking at him all the time. Now, they're going to gawking and for different reasons. I'm not sure anyone can be ready for what he'll feel.

The interviews seem like the next step in his gradual return to golf. He is easing back in, trying to say and do the right things. It won't be easy.