Long road ahead for injured Tiger
Months of recovery await Tiger Woods after his catastrophic car crash – and his loved ones are worried
THE greatest golfer of his generation. The first athlete to become a billionaire. One of the finest sportsmen in 100 years. The accolades go on and on. And they’re well deserved. You don’t have to be a fan of golf to know that Tiger Woods has something exceptional – an ability to shut out the noise, the crowds and the pressure and focus in an almost super-human way, striking the ball with such precision and prescience it’s put him in a class of his own. The fact he was a black man in an otherwise overwhelmingly white sport made him an icon of diversity, a symbol of black excellence and a hero to millions. Yet the life of Tiger
Woods is as tragic as it is triumphant. Affairs, divorce, addiction, crippling injury – and, of course, car crashes.
The latest chapter in his complex story recently played itself out on a stretch of road in broad daylight. Unlike before, substance abuse isn’t believed to have played a role.
Investigations are still ongoing but the stories are swirling: one eyewitness says he saw the golfer leaving the hotel where he was staying and he seemed agitated and impatient as another vehicle was blocking his way. He “took off too fast” in a loaned luxury Genesis SUV and a short while later hurtled off the road near Rancho Palos Verde, a wealthy suburb in Los Angeles. The car hit the kerb, then a tree and flipped over several times.
The damage to the car was catastrophic. Authorities had to cut Woods out of the wreckage. If he hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt it’s unlikely he would’ve survived. As it is, he’s in bad shape. He had an open fracture of his right leg – bone protruding through flesh – and his ankle was shattered. Woods has already had several surgeries and more await, along with months of rehab.
A long, slow road lies ahead and right now his return to the success that simultaneously defined and almost destroyed him hangs in the balance.
HE’S always been a complicated guy. As a child Woods suffered from a stutter, which he described as “words getting lost somewhere between the brain and the mouth”. “It was difficult but I fought it. I went to school to try to get over that and I’d just work my tail off.”
He also worked his tail off to become a
‘I think everyone should just be grateful that he’s here, that he’s alive’
golfer extraordinaire – but then his personal life got in the way of his brilliance.
He crashed his car into a fire hydrant outside his home in 2009 when his thenwife, Elin Nordegren, kicked him out after finding out about his many affairs. Golf took a back seat as he withdrew from the Players Championship in 2010 to go into rehab and face his demons. Speculation swirled that he was a sex addict.
In 2011 he went under the knife for the first of five major back and knee surgeries – and was then arrested after police found him passed out in his car. Tests showed he had high levels of painkillers in his blood and he went back to rehab in a bid to beat his addiction to prescription pills.
His career was over, many believed. In 2017 he was ranked 1 199 in the world – but a year later he was back. He took his 80th career victory on the PGA Tour, winning the Tour Championship in 2018.
“If we’ve learnt anything over the years, it’s never to count Tiger out,” former US president Barack Obama said after the golfer’s epic recovery.
Woods’ steely focus is part of his athletic prowess: in 2008 he won the US Open with a double stress fracture to his left leg and a torn ligament in his knee. Doctors insisted he needed at least six weeks to let his injuries heal but his swing coach, Hank Haney, says Woods was having none of it.
“He looked at the doctor and said, ‘I’m playing the US Open and I’m going to win.’ He went 91 holes on a leg that got worse each day but he did it.”
Whether he’ll be able to do it again remains to be seen. Woods’ back continues to plague him – shortly before his latest crash he had surgery to remove a fragment of a disc that was pinching a nerve.
Now his leg is crushed. Doctors inserted a rod into his tibia and stabilised his foot and ankle with a combination of screws and pins. Months of rehabilitation and physiotherapy lie ahead. “This is a multiple-surgery condition,” says Dr David L Helfet, a US orthopaedic trauma surgeon. “Patients usually undergo multiple ops to remove dead, damaged or infected tissue and sometimes need additional procedures to stabilise the broken bone, to restore the length, alignment and rotation of the leg.”
It will be at least two to three months before Woods is able to walk again, Helfet adds. “Golf is immaterial.”
CAN he defy the odds yet again and step back on the green? He won’t be the first golfer to come back from what seems to be a career-ending crash. More than 70 years ago, American champion golfer Ben Hogan’s legs were crushed when he dived across the passenger seat of his car to shield his wife, Valerie, from an oncoming Greyhound bus.
Hogan was told he’d never walk again and his eyesight was severely impaired, but he made an incredible recovery and went on to win six majors. But Hogan was 36; Woods is 45 and his body has already taken a battering.
“He’s not Superman,” fellow golfer Rory McIlroy said when asked if he thought Woods could beat the seemingly insurmountable odds. “I think everyone should just be grateful that he’s here, that he’s alive, that his kids haven’t lost their dad.”
Daughter Sam (13) and son Charlie (12) are Woods’ children with Elin (41) and he has a good relationship with them. Charlie is following in his dad’s footsteps and becoming a good little golfer.
But insiders say his loved ones are concerned about the road ahead for Woods, who’s been involved with former restaurant manager Erica Herman (36) since 2017.
“Tiger has a deep-seated problem with medication and faces a potentially huge road ahead,” one source says. “Heavy duty painkillers, anaesthesia and sedatives were administered for Tiger’s operations after his crash and he’s facing many more months of them.
“He’s been open about his struggles with these types of opioids for more than a decade. There’s real fear of him being exposed to these drugs in recovery, then leading him back to a place of addiction. It’s a deeply concerning time.”
Ewan Murray, golf correspondent for Britain’s The Guardian and The Observer newspapers, hopes Woods will live up to his nickname the Comeback Kid.
“The game will survive, of course, but it’s hard to imagine it without the one player who transcended the sport.”
‘If we’ve learnt anything over the years, it’s never to count Tiger out’