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Tiger Woods addresses a press conference - Source: Reuters -
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Tears, a hug for mum (which in the press room produced an audible groan) and, perhaps for the first time in this sorry saga, genuine contrition from Tiger Woods.
He's sorry. He said it before - twice. But this time he said it in person. Almost in person, given that the audience was tame, and there were no questions. But when he said sorry, he looked like he meant it.
Tiger also admitted he was in therapy (the dread word 'rehab' wasn't spoken, but implied; yes sex rehab). The language was pure 12-step recovery stuff. He felt entitled. He was selfish. Why is it that the language used to process compulsion, itself so varied, is invariably the same?
But that's a quibble. Let's get to the hug. After his 13 minute self-flagellation (oh, the wicked media, which by the way has been instrumental in helping Tiger accrue the billion dollars he has, came in for some swipes. Those who live by the sword, etc), Tiger departed from the podium, and hugged his mother, who had been sitting stony-faced in the front row. Awkward, painful; it had - to my mind - either the stiltedness of real emotion, or of performance. I still can't tell.
Others, closer observers of Woods, were convinced. Connell Barrett, Editor at Large for Golf Magazine has been covering Tiger for years. He said that the guy on the podium was different to the arrogant distant player he used to know. Barrett likened the hug to the type of gesture dispensed at a funeral, the funeral for a loved one. He said that it was like a funeral, the funeral for the old Tiger.
Meanwhile, deprived of access to the main event, journalists were reduced to watching the live feed, and asking each other what they thought.
We interviewed Connell Barrett, and Rafer Weigel, Sports Anchor at CNN's HLN. They knew what they were talking about. They had been watching Tiger for years. My sympathies to the viewers of the Japanese TV station that interviewed me.
That was inside the convention room of the nearby Marriott, where journalists watched the live feed from the clubhouse of TPC Sawgrass, the HQ of the PGA.
At TPC Sawgrass itself, we tried to get in. 'Are you on the list?' the guard at the front gate asked. 'We thought it was a press conference, so.' 'You gotta turn around, We turned around, parked and lingered.
HLN sports anchor Rafer Wiegel told me that today it was easier to speak to Barack Obama than Tiger Woods. Indeed the Golf Writer's Association of America boycotted the talk/confession/monologue for just that reason.
Outside the gate, it felt that Tiger, the master of control, was still controlling this play.
A rubbish truck went by, hooting its horn.
The guards let the truck in.
'He's in the garbage truck,' joked a grizzled producer for a New York TV station.
A couple of girls associated with a local breakfast radio show were there waving placards. One of them, blond and pneumatic, was Tiger's type. She had pushed something up her dress to make herself appear visibly pregnant. 'We miss you Tiger!'
Ah, publicity, you are a little tramp.
The atmosphere at the TPC Sawgrass gate managed to match that in the Marriott convention centre, and perhaps - that word again because we can only go by what we saw - the room tone inside the barriers, behind the Sherrif's cars, and private security. It was at once emotional, slightly crazed, tedious, fake and perhaps real.
