Tour Confidential: Tiger Woods’ arrest raises thorny questions about past, future   

Check in every week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the hottest topics in the sport, and join the conversation by tweeting us at @golf_com. This week, we discuss Tiger Woods’ DUI arrest, Gary Woodland’s emotional win and hard golf courses.

Tiger Woods was arrested on suspicion of DUI on Friday after he was involved in a two-car accident near his Jupiter Island, Fla., home. Police said Woods’ vehicle clipped the back of a trailer, which caused his SUV to flip on its side; neither Woods nor the driver of the truck pulling the trailer were injured. Woods blew 0.0 on a breathalyzer test, but investigators on the scene said Woods showed signs of impairment. He was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor DUI with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful (urine) test. So many questions, but let’s start with your first impressions. What was your immediate reaction when the news broke?

Alan Bastable, executive editor (@alan_bastable): I wish I could say shock but that would be disingenuous. I think I quickly shifted from a feeling of “not again” to “how did this happen again?” Why is Woods yet again behind the wheel in an allegedly impaired state, endangering both his own life and the lives of others? How frequently has he been doing this? Who, if anyone, is enabling him to do so? If he’s sick and needs help, has he received that help? Received it and worked at it? Received it and shirked it? If he’s sick and needs help, how has he been managing his many duties, in particular his stewardship of the PGA Tour? How much has his poor decision-making been driven by his litany of injuries and surgeries, of his inability to be the player he once was, of the pressure, generally, of being Tiger Woods? There are so many unanswered questions, many of which we may never get answered. From the outside looking in, this latest chapter stirs up all kinds of emotions — sadness, sympathy, anger, disappointment, bafflement, curiosity, disinterest. The public is entitled to feel all of these emotions. Or none of them.   

Sean Zak, senior writer (@sean_zak): My gut was to believe (out of optimism) that this was just a bad-luck incident. But as the details came in, it was a reminder of what we’ve been through before. With such a private person, it will be impossible to know. But when these incidents happen, it gets a lot easier to connect the dots about what we’ve seen from Woods in less-severe moments in the past. His TV broadcast appearances, which haven’t always felt lucid. His Ryder Cup press conference in 2018, at which he basically fell asleep. It’s easy to forget these things when nothing bad happens. It’s really easy to remember them when bad things happen. 

Josh Sens, senior writer (@joshsens). A mix of emotions. Part sympathy for a guy who has never struck me as especially happy; part relief that no one was injured; and part anger at the combination of arrogance/selfishness it takes to get behind the wheel when — as it appears based on the initial reports — you simply don’t belong there.

Woods has an alarming track record of car incidents and accidents. In 2017, he was arrested by Jupiter police on a DUI charge after he was found asleep and incoherent in his vehicle on the side of the road; a blood test revealed he had five prescription drugs in his system. Four years later, in Southern California, Woods was badly injured when, driving well over 80 mph in a 45-mph zone, he swerved off a road and struck a tree; L.A. police did not test Woods for drugs or alcohol and no arrest was made. Does this latest accident change how you look at the framing of what happened in 2021 and ’17?

Bastable: Of course. How can’t it? It’s hard to look back at that L.A. accident and not be mystified by why police declined to blood-test Woods for drugs or alcohol — for many reasons but especially given the high speed at which Woods was traveling and the fact that, according to police, he didn’t apply the brakes before impact. We’ll probably never know the full picture of Woods’ mental or physical state on that morning but, yes, this latest episode absolutely raises more questions about what went down.

Zak: Similar to my answer above — it becomes really easy to connect the dots of these instances. It feels responsible to do so. I imagine a judge will feel similarly. 

Sens: I’m not sure it changed how I look at those past incidents, particularly the L.A. crash. It seemed pretty clear that Woods got preferential treatment in that case.

As of this writing, neither Woods nor his representation have issued any public comments about the accident. How much, if any, transparency does Woods owe the public in terms of exactly what happened Friday?

Bastable: This is Tiger Woods we’re talking about; transparency isn’t among his strong suits, and I don’t expect that to change in the wake of this latest arrest. Also, presumably he and his team are walking a legal tight rope in terms of what Woods can/can’t say or should/shouldn’t say. You’d like to hear ownership for putting lives at risk. You’d like to hear an explanation for how he wound up behind the wheel in his alleged impaired state. And you’d like to hear contrition. We shall see.

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Zak: Yeah, I don’t expect any transparency that Woods isn’t forced into offering in court. But it comes at an interesting moment: with a Ryder Cup captaincy in the balance, the PGA Tour’s future partly in Woods’ hands, and a tournament in Georgia he so badly wants to play just a couple of weeks away.

Sens: The idea that Woods “owes” the public anything doesn’t sit well with me. It seems part of the same dysfunctional relationship we have with celebrities that does no one much good. What he owes is an honest account in court.

Woods’ last official PGA Tour start came at the 2024 Open Championship but he still wears many important hats on Tour. He is a player director on the Tour’s Policy Board; chairman of the Future Competitions Committee; and vice chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises. What does or should this latest arrest mean, if anything, for his involvement in Tour leadership?

Bastable: Tiger Woods is still Tiger Woods, and the PGA Tour is still the PGA Tour; it’s hard to imagine the Tour taking any disciplinary action. Big picture, all of the posts Woods holds now seem so inconsequential, as does any prospect of Woods playing competitively again anytime soon. Stating the obvious but his sole mission in the coming weeks, months and years should be getting better, in whatever ways that is necessary.

Zak: I’m not sure it’s going to mean anything for his place in Tour leadership. He’s too deep in it, and the Tour is too far down the road on establishing its future that it would feel drastic for him to be any less involved. It’s one of the few things Woods feels so strongly about — that involvement.

Sens: I don’t see the arrest in itself as relevant to his role in Tour leadership. The real question is whether Woods has deeper problems that might prevent him from fulfilling his role to the best of his abilities, and — more important — whether he might be better off focusing on his personal health and well-being rather than spending time on the Policy Board. 

Two and a half years after Gary Woodland had brain surgery and just two weeks after he spoke publicly about his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, he won on the PGA Tour — at the Texas Children’s Houston Open — for the first time since the 2019 U.S. Open. Woodland said earlier this week that opening up about his fight with PTSD made him feel “1,000 pounds lighter.” What do you take away from this improbable win?

Zak: Should there be any takeaway beyond “saying things out loud and talking about your struggles can unlock things you never would have imagined”? It’s amazing what he did this week, but also amazing at how quickly it happened after he decided to publicize what he was going through. There’s joy on the other side of sharing in so many cases.

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Bastable: Right, Sean. It’s impossible to get inside Woodland’s head and truly understand what he’s been going through but it’s also hard not to look at the events of the last two weeks and not think Woodland’s decision to air his struggles didn’t pay almost immediate dividends. Loved what he said afterward about potentially inspiring others who are dealing with mental illnesses: “I hope they see me and don’t give up, just keep fighting.”

Sens: Much was — rightly — made of the emotional battle Woodland has been waging. But his return to form also hinged on getting his swing right. The game is both physical and mental. Which meant working on his mind and his mechanics. On the mental side, though, Woodland’s openness with his struggles makes for a striking — and refreshing — contrast to the likes of Tiger Woods, whose guardedness is understandable but also has always seemed damaging. Of the two choices, it sure seems healthier to go about life Woodland’s way.

A week after Matt Fitzpatrick won on the PGA Tour, his brother, Alex, won on the DP World Tour, at the Hero Indian Open at DLF Golf and Country Club near Delhi. If Fitzpatrick was the star of the week, he had a co-star in the fearsome host site, at which only 12 players finished under par and the 65 players who made the cut cumulatively shot 17 rounds of 80 or worse. “Might be the hardest course this year,” German pro Freddy Schott said after he took the first-round lead with a 66. (On Sunday, Schott signed for an 80 and finished T20.) What’s the hardest golf course you’ve ever played? 

Bastable: I’m not sure one stands out as the single hardest but I have played a few rounds that have reduced me to the fetal position: Kiawah’s Ocean Course in the wind; Winged Foot and Baltusol Lower when the rough is grown to ankle-length; Portmarnock in Dublin in driving rain. The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass also has kicked me in the teeth.

Zak: “Oakmont Country Club with the rough up and the rain coming down one month before the U.S. Open” feels like the obvious answer. But “Royal Portrush in 30mph wind from the wrong tees when you’re putting a lot of spin on the golf ball” also suffices. 

Sens: Ko’olau on Oahu. It has since closed. But it was a long, soft and insanely tight course with tangled vegetation and opportunities for lost balls not just on every hole but on pretty much every shot.