Tiger Woods, 14-Time Major Winner and Now Criminal

Well, Tiger Woods is back in the news again, but it’s not for his play on the course. Tiger kicked off Memorial Day behind bars after he was arrested for a DUI in his hometown of Jupiter. After spending the morning in jail, he released a statement about the incident. In his statement, he recounts the incident, saying “What happened was an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications. I didn’t realize the mix of medications had affected me so strongly”. He also stressed that alcohol was not involved, and formally apologized to the public for his misconduct last night.

I’ll admit, when I first got the message about what happened, it was sort of like deja vu for me. I kept having flashbacks to Thanksgiving of 2009, when a car crash led to a media frenzy over Tiger’s cheating scandal with then-wife Elin Nordegren. The first reports snatched the headlines and as more and more information became available, it painted a worse and worse picture for Woods. In his prime, Tiger was in the news for all the right reasons. Nowadays, it seems like he’s better off avoiding the headlines.

I know it’s the official story, but I personally don’t buy the whole “reaction to pain meds” that lead to the DUI. There are definitely some holes in that story. The biggest issue that I have is the fact that he was arrested at 3AM. Keep in mind that this is the same person who couldn’t even get out of bed a few weeks ago, and now he’s riding the streets of Florida in the middle of the night on a cocktail of meds? I don’t think so. There’s definitely more to this story than Woods’s statement leads us to believe, and I personally think that more developments will follow within the next day or two.

So what does this latest incident do to Tiger’s chances of coming back? After the scandal of ‘09, Woods was in relatively good health physically, but his mind was filled with plenty of off-course distractions. This constant mental battle led to an overall decline in the level of Tiger’s play, and arguably caused his dreaded chipping yips. This time, Tiger is already trying to battle back from yet another back surgery, and I don’t think even he knows what to expect for the rest of his career. To have to convince yourself that you’re healthy enough to play golf at the competitive level, on top of having to deal with a new set of off course distractions could prove to be too much for Tiger to handle. As much as I want Tiger to be restored to his former glory, go back out on tour and win a bunch more championships, I don’t realistically see that happening. For now, I have my fingers crossed, but I’m not holding my breath for a successful comeback by Woods.

Written by Paul Choma