Tiger Woods and Ex-Wife Elin Nordegren 'Get Along Really Well' 9 Years After Scandal, Says Source

The former couple has figured out a healthy way to co-parent their two children

Published on April 8, 2018 02:02 PM

A lot has happened since Tiger Woods dominated the PGA Tour.

The 42-year-old athlete, once the No. 1 ranked golfer in the world, has struggled in the 2018 Masters‚ but his ranking has been steadily improving over the past year. (He was at No. 1,199 in 2017. As of April 8, he’s now at No. 103.)

As Woods works on his comeback, his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, lives a quiet life in South Florida. Last month, she put her North Palm Beach mansion on the market for $49.5 million to “downsize.”

Nordegren —who shares two kids, daughter Sam, 10, and son Charlie, 9, with Woods — famously purchased a home on the 1.4 acre waterfront parcel back in 2011 for $12.25 million using part of her reported $100 million divorce settlement from Woods and demolished it to build a three-story, custom residence.

Things are decidedly calmer for Woods and Nordegren than they were in 2009, when the golfer became embroiled in a shocking sex scandal as numerous women came forward alleging extramarital affairs. The couple divorced in August 2010.

But a source close to the golfer says that the former couple gets along well now. “They’re friends now,” the insider tells PEOPLE. “Everything that happened in the past is in the past. They both decided to be adults and to do what was best for the kids. So they get along really well.”

“Tiger says really great things about Elin,” the source continues. “He never complains about her, ever. He never says things like, ‘Oh, my ex is being unreasonable.’ On the contrary, he talks about her in glowing terms. They’re closer now than they were when they were married. The kids love them both.”

Nordegren continued her education after the split. She is scheduled to get a master’s degree in psychology next month.

Woods rarely talks about his marital woes, but he gave a candid interview to TIME magazine in 2015, explaining his relationship with Nordegren.

“She’s one of my best friends,” he said. “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.”

Woods told the magazine that he has come clean with his kids about the events leading to the divorce. “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,’ ” he said.

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But the Woods source tells PEOPLE that Nordegren, 38, doesn’t hold Woods’ past against him when it comes to co-parenting. “Elin is not someone who uses the kids as a weapon,” the source says. “When Tiger wants to see his children, Elin makes sure that he can. She is a really classy woman.”

In 2014, Nordegren told PEOPLE that things between her and Woods are “really good.”

“I have moved on and I am in a good place,” she said. “My relationship with Tiger is centered around our children and we are doing really good — we really are — and I am so happy that is the case. He is a great father.”