"I was in [rehab] for 45 days and it was to take a hard look myself, and I did," Tiger said. "And I've come out better….And does that mean I’m ever going to stop doing that? No. I got to still continue with my treatment and that's going forward.”

“

When you’re living a life where you’re lying all the time, life is not fun.

”

Using his most masterful language, Tiger tried to convince us, or perhaps himself, that just because he can hit a tiny white ball better than anyone else on earth, it doesn’t entitle him to ignore human decency.

"It's not about the championships," he said. "It's about how you live your life. And I hadn’t done that the right way for a while and I needed to change that.”

Yet through the haze of the spotlight there was still signs that warned us to be careful before swallowing hook, line and sinker.

For one, Tiger revealed that Elin is not coming to Augusta this week. And in pictures snapped earlier in the day, she was still not wearing her wedding ring.

Then there was the heavy panting coming from former sex partner & porn star Josyln James, who held her own show in New York to call the golfer’s performance “a big malarkey.”

”I still think he's a big fat liar,”’ she groused at the Friars Club in Midtown, with Gloria Allred by her side. And it wasn't her laughably scolding words, so much as her attachment to this story, that made us leery of Tiger's sincerity.

And at Tiger’s conference, there were other clues that he was still being less than honest. He evaded answering why he avoided speaking to police for two days after his now-notorious Thanksgiving night accident. He mistakenly called Freddie Couples “Craig.” He failed to give a direct answer when a reporter asked him whether he shouldn’t still be working on his marriage instead of playing golf. He looked straight at her and replied what sounded like: “Well, I’m excited to play this week.’

And he sidestepped a question about whether he’ll keep his enabling management team intact. “I will certainly have everyone around me," he repolied. "I’ve lied and deceived a lot of people and a lot of people didn’t know what I was doing either.” Whatever that means.

Ultimately, though, Tiger managed to alleviate the public’s own guilt about bearing witness to his stoning: He convincing us that his unmasking was a good thing.

“When you’re living a life where you’re lying all the time, life is not fun,’’ he said. “And that’s where I was. Now that’s been stripped all away, and here I am. And it feels fun again."