AUGUSTA: Tiger Woods will face his first extended public questioning over a devastating sex scandal on Monday in a dramatic start to a tension-packed comeback week of golf at the Masters.

Reporters from around the world will have the chance to seek details about the early morning crash last November that sparked revelations Woods had cheated on wife Elin, a former Swedish model, with more than a dozen women. Woods apologised by way of postings on his website, a statement broadcast worldwide in February and two five-minute March television interviews, where he detailed regret and humiliation in an epic mea culpa for all to see.

Now, iconic former role model and billion-dollar endorsement pitchman Woods is fighting to put the gossip firestorm behind him by ending a layoff of nearly five months at the controlled atmosphere of Augusta National Golf Club. "It's going to be a huge event, and I think one of the positives from Tiger's perspective (is) doing his press conference on Monday and getting it out of the way, for his sake and everybody's sake," South African star Ernie Els said.

Woods will take questions from a jam-packed interview room mainly featuring golf writers rather than a tabloid media with little interest in the year's first major golf championship before Woods's revelations of infidelity in December. "It makes it a bit more E! Entertainment, doesn't it?" said Irishman Padraig Harrington, a three-time major champion seeking his first Masters title.