I In the US golf world, Tiger mania was just beginning to spread again. Tiger Woods, the idolized golf star of days gone by, had recently been photographed during a few indoor-simulator swings and had hinted at a possible comeback attempt at the Masters in Augusta in April. Such prospects electrify.
Now Tiger Woods, together with the legendary Jack Nicklaus, stands as the greatest swinger of clubs of all time. Woods could master the game’s tools of the trade like hardly anyone else. He won 15 major championships, but his greatest achievement happened beside the competition. Woods’s mystic aura made others worse: tournament rivals required on average more than half a stroke more per round whenever he was in the field. That is a huge margin.
Only driving a car, this national idol apparently cannot do so well. With the driver he was brilliant, but as a driver he is a catastrophe.
Last week, on a country road in Florida, he sped massively too fast with his hulking Land Rover, brushed a semi-truck, and ended up on its side. Blood-alcohol tests came back negative, with no injuries. But he seemed “lethargic,” as the sheriff put it, his suspicion: “a substance.” Woods refused the urine test. That meant eight hours in jail, ugly police photos that were released publicly, then release on bail of an undisclosed amount. Woods is being investigated for driving under the influence.
Hollywood-Ready Car Driving
It was his fourth documented notable incident in road traffic. All of them were as tragic as they were Hollywood-ready. In 2009 he drove near his home into a fire hydrant and was briefly unconscious. It was said he had been on the run after his then-wife had smashed the windows with a 3-iron in a fit of furious jealousy. Woods soon admitted various affairs, first undergoing treatment for sex addiction and then paying millions in his divorce.
In 2017, a police patrol found him sleeping and apparently disoriented in his car on the shoulder. He had to walk a line as a test, which he wobbled through, and the video went viral. Along with it came his first mugshot, the obligatory police photo, for which he was mocked and pitied. The blood sample revealed a toxic mix of painkillers.
In February 2021 the worst crash yet. A chunky SUV, way too fast across two lanes, loss of control, a frontal impact into a tree. His multiple fractures in the leg still handicap him today. Two years after his highly enthusiastically celebrated last Masters win, his career was over. Woods had undergone several extensive operations on his leg and back, but to this day cannot walk smoothly. He attempted a comeback and failed prematurely, limping through the pain.
Now once again public mugshots and new debates. Why can’t this life-endangering speed freak get his existence off the greens under control? How pill-addicted is he? Perhaps Woods can hide his drug use and the usual substances from his circle even less effectively than thousands of other top athletes who struggle with addiction.
Recently he turned 50, an age more often associated with growing wisdom than with youthful recklessness behind the wheel. And above all: at 50, Woods is eligible to compete on the United States’ immensely prominent Champions Tour for seniors, where Bernhard Langer (next year turning 70) still vies for victories. Before an age-twenty Woods, they all showed enormous respect: that he wouldn’t steal title after title from them! It doesn’t look like that anymore.
Unless, of course, he always travels by bus.
