It has been an open secret in the surrounding inner circle Tiger Woods for years: If you want to have a serious conversation with Woods – about his charity and work in architecture; about the future of the PGA Tour; about his 15 Grand Slam victories – you do it in the morning. Woods, famously, is a light sleeper and an early riser. The broad picture you get, from people in a position to know, is that if you’re in the circle, you can get it early. As his days pass, Woods becomes less available and less predictable. This is not idle, mean-spirited speculation. More like observations made in caution, if not concern.
Around 2 pm on Friday, Woods turned his Range Rover around on the narrow two-lane beach road near his home on Jupiter Island, South Florida. He “exploded zero,” in the parlance of DWI investigations—he hadn’t been drinking. He refused to provide a urine sample, but police officers assumed he was taking prescription drugs to treat pain from his multiple surgeries and back problems.
The officers saw what they saw and heard what they heard. Forests was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence – the influence of something. He was taken to the Martin County Jail, where he spent at least eight hours, as county law requires in these scenarios. Around 10 p.m., Woods’ photo began circulating on social media.
As the Martin County sheriff described the accident scene with unmistakable professionalism, Woods tried to pass a truck pulling a pressure washer heading north on a narrow residential road with no shoulders and a 30 mph speed limit. The truck driver was about to turn onto a road. Woods, in the sheriff’s description, caught a rear corner of the trailer with the passenger side of his Range Rover, causing the SUV to flip 90 degrees so that the driver’s side doors were facing down on the road. Woods escaped the vehicle from the passenger door. There were no injuries. If the vehicles were going in opposite directions, “this could have been a lot worse,” said Sheriff John Budensiek. Both for Woods and for the other driver.
If this all sounds depressingly familiar, that’s because it is. In 2017, Woods was arrested by the Jupiter Police Department in South Florida around 3 a.m. on a DUI charge. He was found asleep and incoherent on the side of the four-lane road about 10 miles south of the scene of his Friday crash. He spent that night in the Palm Beach County Jail. A breath test that night revealed Woods had not been drinking, but a blood test revealed he had five prescription drugs in his blood.
In 2021, about 22 months after him thrilling victory at the 2019 Mastersearly on a dry weekday morning in Southern California, Woods pulled off a rural road, over a median, into two lanes and down a ravine. His vehicle was stopped by a tree, flipped and flipped. Woods’ injuries were extensive and his golfing career was permanently compromised. Asked once at a press conference to explain the incident, Woods said curtly, “It’s all in the police report.” But police reports revealed nothing about Woods’ state of mind in the single-vehicle crash. A report showed that, according to the car’s black box recording device, Woods had the gas pedal practically down during the incident, driving over 80 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone. Los Angeles County police officials did not test Woods for drugs or alcohol, and he was not arrested.
In 2008, in the middle of a Thanksgiving weekend holiday night, Woods ran over a hydrant outside his home in the gated housing development in Isleworth. There were no drug or alcohol tests in that incident either. The collision left Woods bloodied and unconscious. In the following weeks and months his private life was exposed for the world to see.
Looking at these four incidents, it’s easy and convenient to say what Woods needs is a full-time driver. That may be true, but Woods is a deeply controlling person. You almost never see Woods as a passenger. Coming and going from hundreds of tournaments over the years, Woods is almost always the guy making the drive. It’s hard to imagine Woods with a driver, and he’s been extremely lucky not to have injured others in these incidents. But when you do some rough human math on these four events, you reach the same conclusion over and over again: It’s not easy being Tiger Woods.
It’s not easy being a shy person who is one of the most famous people in the world. It is not easy to lead a public life when your private life is exposed to the world. It’s not easy being a single dad even when you have all the financial resources in the world. It’s not easy to become extremely talented at a difficult thing—to play tournament golf like no one has ever played it before—and then have to find meaning in your life when that chapter of your life is over.
It is unlikely that there will be a legal event of consequence here as a result of this Friday’s arrest. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Woods still pop up in the Dinner of Champions at Augusta National in less than two weeks. His motto has always been move, move forward, move forward. Tiger Woods is 50 years old. Like all of us, he has no promised tomorrow. He is responsible for his life, just as we are all responsible for our lives. He always has a brave front. There are holes in it. We can see them. It doesn’t matter what we can see. What matters is what he can see.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.
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