Tiger Woods’ recent car accident returns to a similar fate

It’s been an open secret in the tight circle around Tiger Woods for years: If you want to have an in-depth conversation with Woods – about his philanthropy and architecture; about the future of the PGA Tour; about his 15 wins in Grand Slam events — to do in the morning. Woods, famously, doesn’t sleep well and wakes up early. The broader picture you get from people in positions that you know if you’re in a circle you can find early. As his days go on, Woods becomes less and less visible. This is not empty, mean-spirited speculation. Which is like being looked after, if you don’t mind.

Around 2:00 a.m. Friday, Woods turned his Range Rover on a narrow, two-lane road near his home on Jupiter Island, South Florida. He “hit zeroes,” in the parlance of DWI investigations — he hadn’t been drinking. He refused to submit a urine sample but police believe he was using drugs to cope with pain from multiple surgeries and back problems.

The police did not see what they saw and heard. Woods was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of driving while intoxicated – under the influence. He was taken to the Martin County Jail, where he spent at least eight hours, as state law requires in these cases. Around 10 p.m., Woods’ shot began to go viral on social media.

As a Martin County sheriff described the crash with clear-eyed precision, Woods tried to pass a truck pulling a washing machine heading north on a narrow residential road with no shoulders and a speed limit of 30 miles per hour. The truck driver was about to turn onto the road. Woods, according to the sheriff, grabbed the rear corner of the passenger side of the Range Rover, causing the SUV to flip 90 degrees, so that the driver’s side doors were facing down on the road. Woods escaped from the car through the passenger door. There were no injuries. If the cars were going in opposite directions, “this could have been a lot worse,” said the officer, John Budensiek. Both Woods and another 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 at approximately 3 a.m. on a DUI charge. He was found lying unconscious on the side of a four-lane highway, about 10 kilometers south of the scene of his Friday crash. He spent that night in the Palm Beach County Jail. A breath test that night revealed that Woods had not been drinking but a blood test revealed that he had five prescription drugs in his blood.

In 2021, about 22 months after his thrilling win at the 2019 Masters, on a dry morning in Southern California, Woods drove down a country road, over a median, across two lanes and down a river. His car was stopped by a tree, rolled over and overturned. Woods’ injuries were extensive and his golf career was in permanent jeopardy. Asked once at a press conference to explain the incident, Woods simply said, “It’s all in the police report.” But police reports did not reveal anything about Woods’ state of mind in the one-car crash. The report stated that, according to the car’s black box recording device, Woods had the gas pedal nearly floored during the incident, driving more than 80 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone. Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials did not test Woods for drugs or alcohol and no arrests were made.

In 2008, in the middle of the night during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Woods ran over a culvert outside his gated home in Isleworth. There were no drug or alcohol tests in that incident, either. The accident left Woods bleeding and unconscious. In the coming weeks and months his private life was exposed for the world to see.

Looking at these four events, it’s easy and simple to say what Woods needs a full-time driver. That may be true, but Woods is a deeply controlling man. You’ve probably never seen Woods as a rider. Traveling to and from hundreds of tournaments over the years, Woods is almost always a driving force. It’s hard to imagine Woods having a driver, and he was incredibly lucky not to hurt others in these incidents. But if you do the human math of 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 naturally 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 if you have all the money in the world. It’s not easy to have one skill at one difficult thing – to play championship golf like no one has seen before – and then have to find purpose in your life when that chapter of your life is over.

There is little chance of a follow-up legal event here, as a result of Friday’s arrest. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Woods make an appearance at the Champions Dinner at Augusta National in less than two weeks. His mo was on, on, on. Tiger Woods is 50 years old. Like the rest of us, he doesn’t have the future he promised. He is in charge of his life as we all are in charge of our lives. He is always brave. There are holes in it. We see them. It doesn’t matter what we can see. What matters is what he sees.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.