Tiger Woods has taken full responsibility for the marital infidelities which have led to his startling fall from grace and admitted he had lied and deceived a lot of people.

"I lied to a lot of people, deceived a lot of people," the American world number one. "I fooled myself as well. The full magnitude of it, it's pretty brutal."

Speaking before his comeback to competition at the US Open on Thursday, Woods said his Swedish wife Elin would not be attending the tournament. He also pledged to give the game more respect in the future and said he would to try to tone down his occasional bad language and emotional outbursts out on the course.

Woods has not played professional golf since winning the Australian Masters on November 15 following revelations that he had had a string of extra-marital affairs.

Woods spoke for 35 minutes in his first news conference since his private life unravelled at the end of last year.

The scandal around Woods erupted after he crashed his car outside his Florida home in the middle of the night in November, a bizarre incident that triggered a storm of media speculation over his private life.

The minor accident led to a parade of women alleging publicly they had had affairs with the golfer.