Tiger Woods says he was caught in a "horrific" spiral of infidelity before the sex scandal which engulfed his career late last year.

"I tried to stop and I couldn't stop. It was horrific. It was disgusting behaviour," he told ESPN in his first broadcast interview since news of his multiple affairs broke.

Woods said he did not know what kind of response he will get when he plays at Augusta in his return to professional golf at the US Masters next month.

"I don't know, I don't know, I'm a little nervous about that to be honest with you. It would be nice to hear a couple claps here and there," he said.

The world number one and 14 times major winner has admitted to multiple extra-marital affairs and said his life became a lie.

"I was living a life of a lie, I really was. And I was doing a lot of things that hurt a lot of people," he said.

"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."

Woods has not played since winning the Australian Masters in mid-November after a sex scandal in which he admitted cheating on wife Elin, and apologized for igniting a tabloid frenzy where more than a dozen women have claimed affairs.

Woods conducted two separate brief-minute interviews with ESPN and The Golf Channel on Sunday afternoon.

Woods, dressed in a green sweater and a white baseball cap, chose his words carefully as he interviewed near his home in Windermere, Florida.

Woods said he reached a low point when he had to face his mother and wife with the truth.

"I had a lot of low points. Just when I didn't think it could get any lower it got lower," Woods said.

"There were so many different low points. People I had to talk to and face like my wife, like my mom.

"I hurt them the most. Those are the two people in my life who I am the closest to and to say the things that I've done, truthfully to them, is ... honestly ... was ... very painful."

Responding to how his wife took the news, Woods said, "She was hurt, she was hurt. Very hurt.

"Shocked. Angry. She had every right to be and I am disappointed as everyone else in my own behaviour because I can't believe I actually did that to the people I loved."

Woods' interview come just days after former porn star Veronica Siwik-Daniels, known in the sex industry as Joslyn James, released more than 100 text messages on her website that portray Woods as someone who fantasizes about having violent sex with submissive women.

"Just one is enough," Woods said of his affairs. "Obviously that wasn't the case and I've made my mistakes. I have hurt so many people. I have to make amends and that's living a life of amends."

Woods attended a clinic in Mississippi in January and February. Asked what he went into in-patient therapy for, Woods refused to go into specifics.

"That's a private matter. But I can tell you that it was tough. Really tough to look at yourself in a light that you never want to look at yourself. That's pretty brutal.

"A lot has transpired in my life. A lot of ugly things have happened. I have done some pretty bad things in my life."

Sourced via abc.net