Elin Nordegren peppers commencement speech with Tiger Woods jabs

Elin Nordegren has graduated college at the top of her class, and in a commencement speech delivered Saturday in Florida, she got the greatest audience reaction when she slipped in comments referring to her tumultuous divorce from pro golfer Tiger Woods.

In her speech, she noted how she was surprised to have been called on to address the group.

“I have been called ‘a woman with no words’ in the media and criticized for not talking very much,” she said.

Nordegren famously kept a low profile when her marriage to Woods publicly hit the skids in November 2009 after he was involved in a one-car accident the Friday after Thanksgiving.

The initially innocent-seeming wreck wound up being the key to a can of worms that reportedly had Nordegren swinging at his vehicle with a golf club in reaction to his infidelity. How frequently he’d cheated on her -- often -- and with whom -- double digits -- trickled out over the following weeks and months in a saga that continued until their divorce was finalized in August 2010.

On Saturday, Nordegren talked about how far she’d come since she began studies at Rollins College, noting that it had been nine years, and “yes, nine years is a long time.”

“When I entered my student advisor office in the fall of 2005, I was 25 years old, I’d just recently moved to America, I was married without children. Today, nine years later, I’m a proud American and I have two beautiful children,” she said.

Then she paused for effect.

“But I’m no longer married.”

A wave of laughter and applause welled up from the audience.

Later Nordegren talked about how her classes seemed to fall in line with what she was experiencing in her personal life along the way.

“It was right after I had taken Communication and the Media, I was unexpectedly thrust into the media limelight. And I probably should have taken more notes in that class,” she cracked.

“My Psychology and Law class helped me through some of the most challenging times in my life that involved legal matters. The information not only helped me understand the complexity of the legal system but it also offered me a place of peace in the wild storm of my personal life.”

Nordegren graduated with a 3.96 GPA from the college’s Hamilton Holt School, which offers a flexible night-school program for undergraduate and graduate students. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology, Fox News reported.

A recent report cast her as good friends with Woods’ new flame, Lindsey Vonn.