ORLANDO, Florida (AFP) — Tiger Woods won much-needed backing yesterday from the head of key sponsor Nike, while one of the troubled golf star’s alleged mistresses apologised to his wife Elin for the pain she had caused.

Woods, a squeaky-clean marketing juggernaut, became the first billion-dollar athlete thanks to endorsements that have started to vanish even as the world’s top golfer said he will take an indefinite break to work on personal issues.

The chairman of US sportswear giant Nike, which has backed Woods since his 1996 professional debut, told Sports Business Journal in remarks published yesterday that he believed the storm would blow over the 14-time major winner.

“I think he has been really great,” Phil Knight said. “When his career is over, you’ll look back on these indiscretions as a minor blip, but the media is making a big deal out of it right now.”

Accenture, a Dublin-based technology and management company, said Sunday it was ending six years of ties to Woods because he was “no longer the right representative for its advertising”.

Gillette said Saturday it would phase Woods out of advertisements during his break from golf, calling it a supportive move.

AT&T, which backs Woods’ own US PGA event, said in a statement, “We are presently evaluating our ongoing relationship with him”.

Knight called the admitted infidelity by Woods “part of the game” in the industry of endorsements and said when it comes to building brands around athletes, “there is always a risk”.

“One of the things we always try to do when we have a big endorsement is check out the character and the pattern of the individual, but you’re not going to get it right all the time, and if you’re going to be in the business you have to recognise that.”

The latest gossip-page fodder in the icon’s epic meltdown came yesterday when former Woods fling Cory Rist appeared on the Today show, apologising to Woods’s wife Elin and saying Woods portrayed his marriage as falling apart in 2006.

“I understood that things were very difficult at home, not what we thought they were on TV,” Rist said on the US show. “According to him, things were rough and they were going to separate.

“He said, ‘we’re on the outs’, but she was pregnant and they had to get through that.”

US magazine quoted Rist as saying: “He would stay there because she was pregnant, because of his reputation and image — he had to uphold that.”

Rist said her relationship with Woods began in June of 2006, barely a month after the death of Woods’s father and golf mentor, Earl Woods.

Woods’s first child with Elin, daughter Sam, was born a year later after the 2007 US Open. The couple’s other child, son Charlie, was born 10 months ago.

At least a dozen women have reportedly claimed to have been lovers of Woods, who turns 34 later this month.

Woods has drawn extra attention and sponsor support to golf, and a prolonged absence by the superstar and a halt to his pursuit of the record 18 major titles won by Jack Nicklaus could deal a major blow to global interest in golf.