When it comes to Tiger Woods latest drive heading way out into the rough, we will, of course, let the law take its course and draw its conclusions.
We can leave it to the police and lawyers to get to the bottom of the crash near his Florida home making headlines around the world, when it comes to speed, angles, impacts and whether or not any flecks of drugs were in his blood, or indeed vice versa.
There are, however, a couple of things we can safely say, meantime, starting with: Jesus wept, Tiger, AGAIN?
How many times is this now? Four times, yes?
Yes.
The first was in 2009, on a night when his wife Elin Nordegren discovered the golfer had not just been having an an affair, but actually committing adultery on an industrial scale – whereupon she reached for the five-iron and pursued him with some vigour. Woods jumped in his car outside his family compound in the Floridian gated community and hit the accelerator. Fast, but not fast enough.
The SUV jumped a curb, crossed a grass median, struck a fire hydrant, and then slammed into a neighbour’s tree. Woods had no seatbelt on, but was mercifully not badly hurt, beyond being briefly unconscious. When he came to, his wife was taking the golf club to the rear windows, either to help get him out or vent some more rage, it was never clear.
The legal penalty was minimal, merely cited for careless driving by the Florida Highway Patrol, losing four points off his licence and paying a $164 fine. Oddly, despite his wife saying he had “consumed alcohol earlier in the day,” and the circumstances of the crash, he was not breath-tested, nor obliged to give a urine sample. There was suspicion at the time that his was because he was TIGER WOODS, and one does not pursue the greatest golfer the world has seen.
The crash did, however, presage a spectacular fall from grace, which at the time I compared to the fall of Wessel Johannes “Hansie” Cronje, captain of the South African cricket team in the 1990s, banned for life for his role in a match-fixing scandal and Canadian 100m sprinter Ben Johnson being stripped of the 1988 Olympics gold medal for being a drug cheat.
Woods’ sins were not remotely the equal of theirs but it was all just so extraordinarily tawdry for one of his sporting calibre and fame and wealth – who’d always sold himself as a happy family man – to find himself in the middle of such tabloid scandal. (But at least no-one else was hurt.) Sponsors headed for the hills, the media turned on him, and he had a new mountain to climb. Nigh on a decade later, when he was just on the point of re-establishing himself, the next scandal.
Out of the blue, in graveyard hours of 29 May 2017, Woods was pulled over and arrested for DUI after being seen driving erratically on a back road. He badly failed field sobriety tests, and the world watched aghast as he couldn’t even follow basic instructions like reciting the alphabet. Taken into custody, no alcohol was apparent, but he was found to have no fewer than five different drugs. Though charged with DUI, that charge was later reduced, and after apologising to the public, he pleaded guilty to reckless driving with conditions like probation and community service.
(But look, at least no-one was hurt.)
This time, the mountain looked bigger.
Icarus had sailed too close to the sun, and had not just fallen from grace once more, but this time seemed to be in a dark valley of his own making, compounded by physical woes that appeared soon afterwards, which including crippling back pain which hugely hampered his ability to play.
But look now, what happens in April 2019!
Woods sinks the winning putt on the 18th at Augusta, and the world loses its mind, me included.
“I never thought we’d see anything that would rival that hug with his father in 1997,” the commentator said as the patrons continued to roar, stomp and cheer as he made his way through the throbbing throng. “But we just did. That would be the greatest scene we’d seen in golf forever … that hug with his children. The whole euphoria of everything, the patrons, his emotion, the chanting. We will never see anything as exhilarating as that. Congratulations Tiger. Unbelievable.”
And it really was.
“Here,” I wrote, “was a man once revered like no other, then reviled like no other; who had it all, lost it all; was broken physically, crushed mentally, and now against all odds had made his way back to the winner’s circle at the age of 43!”
Oh, but I was just warming up.
“Consider. Here was a man who went from the very peak of public celebrity to the depths of ignominy due to his marital woes – a seemingly happy union finished with his wife taking a five iron to the car Woods was fleeing in, when she found out about the number of women he was cheating with – and slowly climbed his way back to respect and now reverence like never before! The successful Woods of yesteryear was a surly brute. The Woods that won this morning had something that one never had: a sense of humility, and now appreciation for just how special this achievement was – not just another Major to go with more than a dozen others, but the first one since 2008, did we mention!?”
Tiger! He was baaaaack. Such a great story of sporting and human redemption and . . .
And, what now?
Christ, again??
Yes, again. This time, just after 7am, on February 23, 2021, Woods was behind the wheel in a single-vehicle rollover crash in the hills of Rancho Palos California, on a steep, winding downhill section of Hawthorne Boulevard. He was doing nearly double the 45 mph speed limit, when he lost control and slammed into a tree so hard it was uprooted the tree, then rolled over multiple times before coming to rest on its side in brush/grass off the roadway. Woods right leg was badly smashed – but look, at least no-one else was hurt. This time, though, would there be a significant penalty?
Not a bit of it. The authorities ruled it “purely an accident” and no criminal charges were filed.
From a great distance it felt like, once again, Woods had been given the benefit of the doubt, because . . . he was TIGER WOODS.
And now this.
Details are still sketchy, but the latest crash is similar to previous one. Woods, allegedly speeding, loses control of his Range Rover in Florida, and rolls it. Preliminary reports have him juiced to the eyeballs on something, but not alcohol. He’s pictured, standing by the upturned vehicle, on the phone – no doubt to his lawyers, followed by his publicists. Presumably on their advice, he refused to take a urine test. But look, at least no-one else was hurt, yes?
Yes, but that no longer cuts it.
I repeat, we’ll let the law take it course, and see if the allegations such as they are – are proven. But on the pattern of behaviour so far, it is hard to escape the conclusion that as magnificent a player as he was, he is the archetype of the entitled sporting moron, incapable and uninterested in even trying to fix himself, because he is a GREAT, don’t you know, and the rules are for other people.
The fear has to be that if action is not taken, this time, someone truly will be hurt. How many cars can you roll under the influence before action is taken? We will see from here, endless spin. It was all about the medication. He is sorry. He has personal issues. It won’t happen again.
I call bullshit. Look, one time, ok. Twice, he was stretching it. Three times, come on!
Four times?
Only in Trump’s America, if the allegations of his drugged state are proven true, will he not be held accountable with some kind of custodial sentence.
Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X.
