• US Masters

Tiger 'nervous' about Masters return

Tiger Woods insists he has emerged stronger out of the scandal that saw him take a four-month break from the golf course.

The world No. 1 has not played since November 15, when he won the Australian Open in Melbourne, and following revelations about his private life which emerged later that month, Woods announced that he would be taking an indefinite leave from the sport. He announced on Tuesday that he would make his return to the golf course at the US Masters in April.

In an interview with ESPN, Woods admitted that he is wary of the reception he will get at Augusta, but he insisted he was looking forward to his return.

"I'm a little nervous about that to be honest with you," he said. "It would be nice to hear a couple claps here and there."

"I'm excited to get back and play, I'm excited to get to see the guys again. I really miss a lot of my friends out there. I miss competing. But still, I still have a lot more treatment to do, and just because I'm playing, doesn't mean I'm [going to] stop going to treatment."

In his first interview since the car crash outside his Florida home at the end of November that led to his admission of marital infidelity, Woods told ESPN's Tom Rinaldi that he felt stronger after facing up to the truth.

"I hurt a lot of people, not just my wife," he said. "My friends, my colleagues, the public, kids who looked up to me. There were a lot of people that thought I was a different person and my actions were not according to that. That's why I had to apologise. I was so sorry for what I had done.

"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 rationalisation 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."

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