Tiger Woods was surprised when he was handcuffed after crashing his SUV in Florida in the US last week, per body camera footage released on Thursday.
“I’m being arrested?” Woods asked Martin County sheriff’s deputy Tatiana Levenar, who conducted a sobriety test on him.
“I do believe your normal faculties are impaired and you’re under an unknown substance, so at this time you’re under arrest for DUI (driving under the influence),” Levenar told the 15-time major champion.
The footage also shows deputies removing two pills from Woods’ pocket.
“That’s a Norco,” Woods said after an officer removed the painkillers.
Authorities later confirmed Woods was in possession of hydrocodone.
There was an accident, and that’s all I know. He’s an amazing person, amazing man, but some difficulty.
— US President Donald Trump
Woods said he was looking at his phone and changing the radio station when his Land Rover clipped the back of a truck and rolled onto its side on Jupiter Island in Florida.
The bodycam footage also shows Woods telling a police officer he was on the phone with US President Donald Trump shortly after his crash.
“Thank you so much. All right. You got it. Bye,” Woods said as he walked over to an officer who had called him back to the crash scene, saying: “I was just talking to the president.”
Woods is dating Vanessa Trump, the ex-wife of the president’s oldest child, Donald Trump Jnr.
On Thursday night, Trump said during a Fox News interview that Woods would not be playing in this year’s Masters, something Woods had not yet announced publicly.
When asked about Woods’s crash, Trump said the golfer was a “very close friend. I feel so badly. He’s got some difficulty”.
“There was an accident, and that’s all I know. He’s an amazing person, amazing man, but some difficulty.”
Trump previously told Reuters Woods seeking treatment was “a good thing” and he believed the golfer was “going to be terrific”.
The release of the bodycam footage comes one day after Woods was granted a request by a Florida judge to leave the US to enter a comprehensive inpatient treatment facility as he faces misdemeanor DUI charges.
Martin County court judge Darren Steele granted the motion to travel submitted by Woods’s attorney, Douglas Duncan, who cited the 50-year-old golf superstar’s need for an “intensive, highly individualised and medically integrated programme” away from media and public scrutiny.
Woods released a public statement on Tuesday and entered a plea of not guilty in a Florida court to charges of misdemeanor DUI with property damage.
The arrest affidavit stated a breathalyser test showed no signs of alcohol, and that Woods refused a urinalysis test for other drugs.
The affidavit stated Woods was “sweating profusely”, his movements were “lethargic and slow”, his eyes were “bloodshot and glassy”, his pupils were “extremely dilated” and during the field sobriety exercises Woods was “limping and stumbling to the right”.
Field Level Media
