Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama on Saturday commented on Tiger Woods’ sex scandals, saying self-discipline is among Buddhism’s highest values, a day after Woods said he had strayed from his Buddhist faith.

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader said that he had not heard of Woods, but when the circumstances were explained to him, he said that when it came to adultery, “all religions have the same idea.”

“Whether you call it Buddhism or another religion, self-discipline, that’s important,” he said. “Self-discipline with awareness of consequences.”

In his first public comments since the November 27 car accident that set off a series of shocking allegations of rampant extramarital relationships, Woods said Friday that he was raised Buddhist but needed to focus anew on finding balance between his religion and professional life.

The Dalai Lama made the remarks while in the Los Angeles area to support Whole Child International, an organisation that advocates better care for orphans worldwide.

Meanwhile, Woods’s return to competitive golf may be sooner than expected. That possibility was raised on Saturday after reports that Kultida Woods, his mother, had given a clear hint to this effect and that Steve Williams, his caddie, had hinted at the same thing in an interview in an Australian newspaper.

Woods had been vague in his publicised press conference, leaving the date of his return wide open. “I do plan to return to golf one day,” he said on Friday. “I just don’t know when that day will be.”

Tiger Woods

He went on to say: “I don’t rule out that it will be this year,” making it sound as though if it is, it will be towards the end of the year, well after the Masters in April, the US Open in June, the Open in July and the Ryder Cup in October.

Yet Kultida, when asked by an acquaintance whom she meets only at golf tournaments when they would see each other again, replied: “I think it will be sooner than you think.”

Williams suggested that Woods’s return could be earlier rather than later. “As Tiger pointed out in his statement, he has one more visit to the place where he is receiving his counselling,” Williams said.

Phrases such as “one more visit” and “final visit” in reference to his time at his therapy centre in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, suggest that the treatment he is undergoing will finish sooner than expected.

An expert on this sort of therapy said on television that this sort of counselling takes three to five years and Butch Harmon, Woods’s former coach, said that he did not expect Woods to be playing competitive golf again this year.

Kultida’s hint and Williams’s remarks seem to suggest otherwise.