Golf Superstar, Tiger Woods Shares on Co-parenting with Ex-wife & Regrets About His 2009 Serial Cheating Scandal

In an interview with TIME, ace golf player, Tiger Woods, shared on regrets about his messy philandering scandal in 2009, and co-parenting his daughter Sam, 8, and son Charlie, 6, with ex-wife, Elin Nordegren. Read excerpts:

On whether he regrets his public scandal

“In hindsight, it’s not how I would change 2009 and how it all came about. It would be having a more open, honest relationship with my ex-wife. Having the relationship that I have now with her is fantastic. She’s one of my best friends. We’re able to pick up the phone, and we talk to each other all the time. We both know that the most important things in our lives are our kids. I wish I would have known that back then.

Our frustrations would have come out if we had talked about it and been open and honest with each other. Which we are now, and it’s absolutely fantastic.”

On their messy split and moving on

“It was too tough, too tough. But now, in hindsight, as years and years have gone by, we’re like best friends. It’s fun. She talks to me about her life, I talk to her about my life. We try and help each other out on all occasions. And we work through it with the kids, the parenting program. She is one of my best friends now, and it’s all because of my kids. We’ve worked so hard, and I’ve shown her how much I love them.”

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On co-parenting their children now

“We’ve worked so hard at co-parenting, to make sure that their lives are fantastic. For instance, I’ve told her this, I’ve taken the initiative with the kids, and told them up front, ‘Guys, the reason why we’re not in the same house, why we don’t live under the same roof, Mommy and Daddy, is because Daddy made some mistakes.’

I just want them to understand before they get to Internet age and they log on to something or have their friends tell them something. I want it to come from me so that when they come of age, I’ll just tell them the real story. But meanwhile, it’s just, ‘Hey, Daddy made some mistakes. But it’s O.K. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. But look what happened at the end of it. Look at how great you are. You have two loving parents that love you no matter what.’ And I said, ‘You have no idea how lucky you guys are, to have two parents that love you so much. Unfortunately, we’re not in the same house, but the flip side is we love you no matter what you do. And I’m a parent, as the dad, who is always going to try to help you, guide you through life.’ And so, that’s part of the initiative, hey, it was my fault too. I was to blame, and so I’m taking initiative with the kids. I’d rather have it come from me, as the source. And I can tell them absolutely everything, so they hear it from me.”