Oliver Brown
Why the Martin County Sheriff’s Office feels compelled to document Tiger Woods’ arrest with gruesome details, from the discovery of painkillers in his pocket to his surprise 17-minute drive to the local police station, is a matter best left to the Florida justice system.
The only certainty is that the picture is a haunting watch, a window into the personal suffering of a man whose life, like the Range Rover abandoned on that residential street, has been turned on its axis.
Until the release of these videos, false explanations had been given in medical terms, with the affidavit revealing his “bloodshot and glassy” eyes, not to mention his “extremely dilated” pupils.
Now we see his extra state clearly, as he fights hiccups in the back of the police car, his head falling back and his chest heaving slightly.
Even with his pronounced upper body muscles, sculpted through a rigorous fitness regime that has been known to frequent the gym at 3 a.m. on nights when he can’t sleep, he looks all his 50s, his face puffy and his sleepiness fostering a melancholy mood.
Even Woods’ most dedicated detractors couldn’t dream of looking at him like this. He is no longer a 15-time major champion, but a clear figure in severe physical and psychological stress.
Just days earlier, he was appearing in his local golf league, teasing a return to the Masters. Now police body camera footage shows him unable to pass even a standard sobriety test, with officers seeing “several signs of impairment”, including limp movements and sweating in the back of an air-conditioned car. For anyone who has charted his rise and fall, it is as sad as it is frustrating.
It is sad to see the time on the video when the arrest is made: 3.11pm last Friday. The sky is blue and the environment is not threatening, in the middle of a rich neighborhood on a street lined with palm trees.
In any case, he is in a happy and stable relationship with Vanessa Trump, the former daughter of the US president. Incredibly, in the moments after the accident, he claims to have called the commander in chief himself.
“I’m just talking to the president,” he tells angry officers wandering the streets. The President, for his part, has been unusually quiet about the episode. “My very best friend,” he said, in his only public comment about Woods.
“An amazing person. But some difficulty. I don’t want to talk about it.”
The odd question is what Woods is doing dazed and confused on a quiet weekday afternoon, carrying hydrocodone, a powerful opioid. That’s just one of several drugs he lists for police, confirming worst fears that he’s become addicted, since the surgery list, to strong painkillers.
Not for the first time, the pharmaceutical support that Woods needs just to get through the day has been released for all the world to see.
In 2017, when he was first arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, police found not only hydrocodone in his system but hydromorphone, another painkiller, as well as Xanax and Ambien, two sleeping pills, as well as THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in marijuana.
His police photo that night, showing him beaming and broken, would become the most visible part of his coronation at the Masters two years later, hitting the airwaves to celebrate his fifth green jacket and perhaps his biggest return to the game.
No such redemptive streak suggests itself here. Woods has not been in any competitive setting since 2024, when he shot 79 and 77 in the Open at Royal Troon before withdrawing. He had 44 over par for his four majors that year, even carding an 82 at Augusta, the point of his most thrilling victory.
Since then, he has seemed unable to bridge the gap, appearing only briefly to promote his own glorified video game league.
“And then, suddenly, boom.”
This is how Woods describes his most recent car accident when asked, but he could just as easily be talking about the abuse of his career.
There are broader questions than golf for him to ponder now. Ever since 2021, when he hit 87mph (140km/h) in a 45mph zone in Los Angeles before ending up upside down in a canyon, the notion of him running for the majors again has been tantalizing.
Exceptionally lucky not to kill himself or anyone else that day, he is on the brink once again. Recent video research once again shows this at its worst, showing him convulsing and stuttering, alternating between agitation and drug-induced stupor.
The only consolation is that he promises to seek medical help outside the United States, where he works with a merciless microscope.
Whatever you may think of Woods, the county police’s decision to release these tapes feels wrong and unnecessary. The greatest golfer of his generation, having reached his nadir, deserves better than to add to his infamy.
Telegraph, London
