Tiger Woods was arrested and charged with driving under the influence on Friday after a rollover crash near his Florida home, authorities said, marking another legal setback for the 15-time major champion.
Woods, 50, escaped injury but was detained after his vehicle clipped a truck while attempting to overtake on a residential road on Jupiter Island, flipping onto its side before sliding to a stop.
Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek said Woods showed signs of “impairment,” although he passed a breathalyzer test.
“When it came time for us to ask for a urinalysis test, he refused, and so he’s been charged with DUI, with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful test in the crash,” Budensiek said.
In line with Florida DUI laws, Woods was detained at the county jail for eight hours and was photographed departing the facility in a car late Friday. A booking photo showed a red-eyed, stubbly-chinned Woods when he arrived at the jail about two hours after the crash.
Budensiek said drug recognition experts who examined Woods at the scene found the golfer “lethargic” and believed he was impaired with “some kind of medication or drug.” No drugs or medication were found in his vehicle, and since Woods refused the urine test, authorities “will never get definitive results as to what he was impaired on at the time of the crash,” Budensiek said.
While neither Woods nor the driver of the other vehicle was injured, Budensiek said the incident on the two-lane road “could have been a lot worse.”
He said the driver of the truck had slowed to make a turn, then tried to move to the side of the road when he saw Woods’s fast-moving vehicle attempting to overtake him.
“When I show you the photos, they kind of speak for themselves… you can see that Woods slid for a decent space before he came to a stop,” said the sheriff, who noted that after the crash Woods climbed out of the passenger-side window of his Land Rover.
President Donald Trump expressed sympathy for Woods in remarks to reporters in Miami following the incident. “He’s got some difficulty, there was an accident, and that’s all I know,” Trump said. “Very close friend of mine. He’s an amazing person, amazing man, but, uh, some difficulty.”
Woods was arrested in Jupiter in 2017 after police found him asleep at the wheel of his damaged car. He eventually pleaded guilty to reckless driving and said he had taken a mix of painkillers.
Five years ago he was involved in a serious car crash in California that left him with severe right leg injuries requiring pins inserted in his foot and ankle and a rod in his tibia, as well as a follow-up surgery in 2023.
Woods returned from that crash at the 2022 Masters, where he struggled to walk all four rounds on the way to a 47th-place finish. His clean-cut image was left in tatters after a 2009 sex scandal that upended his career.
He has been working to return from an Achilles tendon rupture last March and back surgery last October.
He competed earlier this week in the TGL simulator indoor golf league finals and had not ruled out playing in next month’s Masters, where his five victories include his first major title in 1997 and his most recent in 2019.
