Sports fans tend to be an incredibly impatient group.
Sports fans tend to be an incredibly impatient group.
If your team won a title two years ago, why didn’t they win one last year? If your team settled for a field goal, the fans insist they should have gone for the touchdown. Rookies have to start in week one of their professional careers or they are busts. Why build for the future when you can win now, now, now?
So it has been with the latest in a series of comebacks for Tiger Woods, the king of the comeback in golf. After a horrific automobile crash that could have taken his life last February, Woods has once again fought his way back from physical adversity to tee off in a PGA Tour event. OK, it’s an unofficial event, a Silly Season tournament where who wins and who loses doesn’t mean much at all. But the PNC Championship this weekend is a chance to see Woods hitting golf balls, and that alone is thrilling considering it was possible that might never happen again.
But that won’t stop people from wanting Woods to win a major championship this year. They will want him to play a relatively full schedule. Get that one win to pass Sam Snead on the all-time wins list, some fans will cry. Get closer to Jack Nicklaus on the all-time major titles ladder, some will demand.
Yes, Tiger Woods is playing golf this week with his son and other professionals and their family members. He’s even playing well. But don’t mistake this for Woods playing PGA Tour-caliber golf. Woods is tantalizing fans with his game, but look closer and you know this is not a guy getting ready to play in the Farmers Insurance Open in February.
Can he even walk 18 holes? Remember, this is not a disability that Woods has, like Casey Martin had when he used a cart on the Tour. This is classified as an injury. So Woods can use a cart in the unofficial event this week but will walk when he comes back to the Tour. Not just 18 holes, mind you, but 72 holes on golf courses with hills and swales and bumps that will create strange sidehill and downhill lies. When will Woods be able to handle all of that?
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Too many questions to answer
And how have the injuries to his leg impacted his golf swing? Is the leg strong enough to take the stress and torque that Woods has always created in his swing? Maybe that will come down the road, but it certainly isn’t there now in terms of playing four days in a PGA Tour event.
In other words, there are still too many unknowns to make Woods the betting favorite at the Masters. Maybe Las Vegas should be taking bets on whether Woods even plays in the Masters. You might want to bet against that.
No one on the PGA Tour today knows more about what it takes to come back from physical ailments than Woods. From the knee surgeries to the back surgeries that seemed to end his career at one point, Woods has followed a strict path of rehabilitation and hard work to not only play again but win again. Maybe there is another comeback in Woods. Maybe there isn’t.
But patience is a virtue for Woods now as he battles back from the accident. Hopefully, golf fans will find the patience to let Woods return to competition in his own time.
Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer, he can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4633. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_Bohannan.
Multiple people familiar with the situation confirmed the news to Golfweek.
The last tournament Tiger Woods played was the PNC Championship in December 2020, when he partnered his son Charlie to a 7th place finish in the parent-child event. Organizers are apparently hopeful it will also be the next tournament we see Woods play.
Three sources familiar with the situation confirmed to Golfweek that the PNC Championship is keeping a place open for Woods in the limited-field event, which begins in just three weeks. Organizers had planned to complete the field without the 15-time major winner, who has been recovering from serious injuries sustained in a February 23 car wreck.
“The message came: not just yet!” one source familiar with the circumstances said.
The PNC Championship pairs major winners with a family member and will be played December 18-19, with pro-am days on December 16-17. It is held at the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes in Orlando. The PNC field is limited to 20 teams, but just 18 pairs have so far been announced for the 2021 event. Multiple sources told Golfweek that one of those slots is earmarked for Woods and the now 12-year-old Charlie, and that the event will give Woods as much time as possible to decide if he’s healthy enough to play.
“We can go pretty late. The draw gets done week of,” a source closely involved with the event explained. The source requested anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
The caption on Woods’s video—just two words: “Making progress”—led to a flurry of speculation that he will return to the PGA Tour in 2022. But few thought it realistic that he might possibly be only weeks away from playing again in public.
In both the video he posted and in a recent public sighting as he watched Charlie at junior golf tournament, Woods was still wearing a sleeve on that leg.
The PNC Championship, formerly known as the Father-Son Challenge, began in 1995. The field for the 2021 edition includes legends like Tom Watson, Gary Player, Lee Trevino and John Daly. Nelly Korda will also make her debut, playing alongside her father, tennis great Petr Korda.
It’s been 10 years since police responded to a 911 call at Tiger Woods’ mansion that erupted in a sex scandal that derailed his marriage.
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In May, on a rainy evening in Springdale, Ark., a 2009 black Cadillac Escalade with an infamous history headed south on Carlton Street.
A 1997 Chevrolet Blazer headed east on the perpendicular street, McCray Avenue, and both cars approached the intersection.
When the driver of the Escalade failed to yield the right of way, the vehicles collided, and it wasn’t the first accident involving the Escalade. That came about a decade earlier, when the SUV was driven by the most famous golfer on the planet.
Tiger Woods was behind the wheel of that 2009 Escalade on Nov. 27, 2009 when at about 2:30 a.m., outside his former mansion in Windermere, Fla., he collided with a row of hedges and hit a fire hydrant. The vehicle finally came to rest after hitting a tree.
Less than two days earlier, the National Enquirer published a story alleging that Woods was having an affair with Rachel Uchitel, then a New York nightclub hostess. The car accident and its murky circumstances — paramedics found Woods lying in the road, snoring and without shoes or socks — coincided with Woods’ personal crash.
A full-fledged sex scandal ensued, exposing years of infidelity and rocking Woods’ life.
He lost his wife. He lost sponsorships. He lost his dignity.
With 14 major championships at the time of the car accident, Woods, then 33, still looked like a solid bet to break Jack Nicklaus’ all-time record of 18 majors. But with medical problems developing during Woods’ personal scandal, it took more than a decade for him to win another major — the 2019 Masters, arguably the most meaningful of his career.
While Woods’ free fall became a public spectacle, others connected to his demise have suffered in relative obscurity.
Tiger Woods appears with his wife, Elin, in photographs on the cover of magazines displayed on a newsstand in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009. (Kathy Willens/AP)
Mindy Lawton, one of more than a dozen women identified as former mistresses of Woods, was involved in a fatal vehicular accident.
Jamie Jungers, who claimed to have had an 18-month affair with Woods, attempted to use the notoriety during her legal problems.
The trooper who handled the first phase of the investigation into Woods’ accident for the Florida State Highway Patrol faced his own investigation — for shooting an unarmed suspect in the scalp.
The neighbors who wrapped Woods with blankets and put a pillow under his head at the scene of the SUV accident suffered indignities they apparently thought Woods would help spare them.
And then there is the 2009 Cadillac Escalade.
Here are their stories:
Mindy Lawton
On the list of Woods’ alleged ex-mistresses, which included porn stars, escorts and lingerie models, Mindy Lawton stood apart. At the time she met the golfer, Lawton told reporters, she was an $8-an-hour waitress at Perkins restaurant, near Woods’ former mansion in Windermere.
Two weeks after Woods crashed his Escalade, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY, Lawton, then 33, signed a contract designed to cash in on her alleged 14-month affair with Woods that she told reporters ended in 2007.
The deal called for Lawton to be represented by a Florida attorney, Glenn Reid, who would receive 33.3 percent of each $1 million generated by Lawton from media-related opportunities, according to a copy of the contract.
The big payday never came. Lawton went from scandal curiosity to convicted felon.
In January 2011, she pleaded guilty to DUI with serious bodily injury, a third-degree felony. She was sentenced to five years probation and served one year in county jail. The following year, Lawton was unable to find employment, out of money and two weeks from being homeless, according to court records.
The court terminated Lawton’s probation early and allowed her to return to live with her mother in New York, court records show. Then came another crash.
On the morning of June 21, 2015, Lawton was riding on an ATV with her boyfriend, Jamie Kennedy. Kennedy lost control after the ATV hit large rocks and trees, and the two were ejected from the vehicle, according to published reports.
Kennedy, 45, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Lawton, then 38, was airlifted to a hospital. She survived after undisclosed medical treatment.
In Kennedy’s obituary found online, Lawton was described as Kennedy’s “companion.’’ Her Facebook page includes photos of her with Kennedy and indicates Lawton, 43, still lives in Ogdensburg, N.Y., a town of 11,128 where she grew up.
The Perkins restaurant where Lawton said Woods regularly ordered the egg-white omelet with broccoli has shut down. And the deal between Lawton and Reid, the Florida attorney, went sour.
Five months after the contract was signed, Reid sued, claiming Lawton cooperated for a “Vanity Fair” magazine article without consulting him.
Lawton did not respond to voicemails and text messages from USA TODAY Sports seeking comment.
Jamie Jungers
Two weeks after Woods’ accident, Jamie Jungers became the first alleged mistress of his to be interviewed on live TV.
Wearing a fur-lined coat on the set of NBC’s Today, Jungers, then 26, said her affair with Woods began in 2005 after the two met in Las Vegas.
The affair ended about a year and a half later after she asked Woods for help with financial problems and he declined, Jungers said. But her notoriety continued over the last decade.
In August 2011, when Jungers was being questioned by Las Vegas police who suspected she had been driving under the influence, she told a police officer she was “a celebrity, related to Tiger Woods.’’
Tiger Woods hugs his mother Kultida Woods after publicly admitting to cheating on his wife Elin Nordegren but maintained that the issues remain “a matter between a husband and a wife.” (Photo: Joe Skipper-Pool/Getty Images)
Jungers made “several references’’ that she was a celebrity and wanted a warning instead of being booked at jail, according to the incident report. She was booked and convicted of DUI.
And booked again in Las Vegas in September 2015 on charges of possession of narcotics paraphernalia and driving on a revoked license.
And booked again in Las Vegas in November 2018 as a fugitive from another state on warrant. Her disappearance was featured on an episode of “Dog the Bounty Hunter,’’ when former bail bondsman Duane “Dog’’ Chapman helped hunt down Jungers in Las Vegas and handed her over to police.
On camera, Jungers said she was struggling with an addiction to heroin — she was on probation in Kansas for heroin possession. She made another cameo on “Dog the Bounty Hunter’’ about three months later, reporting she was successfully completing rehab at KISA Life Recovery, a treatment center in Sedan, Kan.
Jungers, now 36, told USA TODAY Sports she “graduated” from KISA Life Recovery and now works for the treatment center.
Joshua Evans
Evans pulled up to the scene of the crash at 3:01 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 27, 2009. Accustomed to handling DUI investigations during his year on the job, the 28-year-old trooper found himself handling the initial stage of investigating the high-profile incident.
On the accident report, Evans noted the estimated damage ($3,300 for the hedges, fire hydrant and tree, and another $8,000 for the Escalade), diagrammed the winding route Woods took (down his driveway and over a concrete curb, onto grass median and swerving back across the concrete curb, onto a grass shoulder before plowing into the hedges, fire hydrant and tree on his neighbors’ property) and the estimated speed (30 mph in a 25-mph zone).
It also was Evans who went to Health Central Hospital in nearby Ocoee, where Woods had been treated and released, and sought a medical sample of Woods’ blood. He suspected the golfer might have been impaired at the time of the crash.
But hospital workers turned Evans away, and the state’s attorney’s office denied Evans’ request for a subpoena to get a sample of Woods’ blood taken the night of the crash.
Almost four years later, it was Evans who was under investigation.
In November 2013, Evans was involved in a high-speed chase. It ended with Evans and the man suspected of driving under the influence struggling at the front door of the home where the driver lived with his parents.
Evans pulled out his Glock 37 and fired seven bullets into the front door, according to court documents. One of the bullets struck the man in the head but did not cause life-threatening injuries, according to court documents.
A grand jury cleared Evans in the incident.
But an internal investigation found Evans violated the Florida Highway Patrol’s policy on excessive force, and he was suspended for 40 hours without pay, said public affairs officer Kim Montes.
Evans declined to comment for this story, according to Montes, who said Evans is still employed by the highway patrol and remains highly regarded for his work.
Montes said Evans made more than 100 DUI arrests in both 2012 and 2013 and also has distinguished himself as a member of the mobile field force that handles civil disturbances, as a felony officer for drug interdiction and the patrol’s hit-and-run crash investigator.
The neighbors
Jarius Adams and his sister, Kimberly Harris, told investigators they discovered Woods lying on the pavement in front of their parents’ house and Elin Nordegren, then Woods’ wife, standing over the golfer.
“Can you please help me?’’ Adams told investigators Nordegren asked him.
First, Adams called 911.
“I need an ambulance immediately,’’ Adams can be heard saying on a recording of the 911 call. “I have someone down in front of my house.’’
Then Adams and his sister wrapped Woods in a blanket and put a pillow under his head. But in the days that followed, things got less neighborly.
A security officer guards the area in front of Tiger Woods’ house, left, in Windermere, Fla., Friday, Nov. 27, 2009. (Photo: Gary W. Green, AP/Orlando Sentinel)
“They all wanted Tiger to pay them is what they really wanted, for helping him,’’ said Bill Sharpe, a Florida attorney who represented the family that owned the house next door to Woods’ former mansion. “That was the real issue.’’
After Woods’ car accident, Sharpe said, he got a call from Jerome Adams Jr., the brother of Jarius Adams and Harris. Their father owned the house next door to Woods.
Sharpe said he had represented Jerome Adams Jr. in the late 1990s on charges of passing worthless bank checks when Adams was attending Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.
Six months after the accident, Jerome Adams Jr. launched a website with a pay-per-view video trashing Woods. Adams charged $3.99 for videos on which, according to a 2010 report in the Orlando Sentinel, said things like, “He’s a jerk,” and “The person that you know is just a crafted image.”
On the surface, Sharpe said, it probably seemed odd that members of a family that lived in Isleworth, the exclusive gated subdivision, were charging $3.99 for anti-Tiger videos.
“They had fallen on hard times,’’ Sharpe said.
Jerome Adams Jr.’s home had been in foreclosure, court records show. The house his father owned next to Woods’ home in Isleworth also had been in foreclosure, court records show.
Professional golfer Bubba Watson ended up buying Woods’ former home — the seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom, 7,940-square foot estate, where Woods once lived with Elin and their daughter, Sam, and son, Charlie. But Watson has since moved.
The former neighbors are long gone too. Jerome Adams Sr., then a retired obstetrician/gynecologist, sold the family home in 2011 for $1.8 million.
Jerome Adams Sr. and his wife moved into a home that cost less than $300,000, and he died in 2014. Family members did not respond to voicemails or text messages left by USA TODAY Sports.
The Escalade
The SUV, which can be tracked by its VIN number, rolled off the General Motors assembly line in 2008. GM still owned the vehicle during the time of Woods’ accident. From there things get murky, although CARFAX offers some tidbits.
The Escalade has made its way from Michigan to Florida, and from Tennessee to Missouri, and finally to Arkansas, with its sixth owner.
An image of Tiger Woods Escalade was released by the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) on March 12, 2010. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
On May 9, on a rainy evening in Springdale, Ark., Alicia Galvan, 38, was driving the Escalade when it collided with a Chevy Blazer. Galvan was cited for failure to yield the right of way and for driving without a driver’s license or insurance.
The report shows the owner of the Escalade was Refujio Perez-B of Fayetteville, and he listed the same home address as the driver.
Maria Curiel, co-owner of the Fayetteville property, told USA TODAY Sports she would look into the matter.
The next day, Curiel reported by text message, “I contacted the manager of the property, but she does not want to release any information. I am sorry.’’
Like Tiger Woods, there are a lot more miles on the Escalade than there were a decade ago.
The last official odometer for the Escalade, according to a CARFAX report, shows 158,052 miles — and still rolling along a decade after that fateful crash.
It was 10 years ago on Nov. 27 that Tiger Woods ran his car into a fire hydrant and his career off a metaphorical cliff.
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Nov. 27, 2009 is a date that lives in the surreal outer reaches of sports infamy. It is a date that marks the most bizarre self-induced sabotaging of an athlete’s image, career and lifestyle in the history of sports.
It is the date that Tiger Woods ran his car into a fire hydrant at the end of his driveway, triggering a cascade of scandalous revelations that forever altered the way tens of millions of people around the world viewed him as a golfer, pitchman, husband, father and cultural icon.
In other words, the 10th anniversary of Tiger’s drive off the metaphorical cliff is one that undoubtedly will pass without his celebration.
Some might believe that because Tiger has won several high-profile tournaments since those dark days of 2009 – including, finally, another major at this year’s Masters – he has bounced back to where he once was and that everything is the same today as it was the moment before he tore out of his house in his Cadillac Escalade in those early morning hours after Thanksgiving.
That assumption would be wrong. Go ahead and cheer for Tiger all you’d like. Revel in the comeback story of the year, if not the century. Applaud him for acting more like a normal person now, if only because he couldn’t have acted less like a normal person for years.
But make no mistake about it. For Tiger Woods, nothing is the same as it was in those heady days before the world found out who he really was.
Tiger Woods appears with his wife, Elin, in photographs on magazines displayed on a newsstand in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009. (Photo: Kathy Willens/AP)
Many of us are old enough to remember that the act of turning on a television or walking through an airport often put us face to face with the most prominent athlete of the early days of the 21st century. Tiger’s endorsement deals were legendary: AT&T, Accenture, American Express, Gillette, Buick, General Mills and Gatorade, among others.
Nearly all are long gone. Those companies signed Tiger believing he was what he portrayed himself to be: a fearless athlete with a sweet smile, a storybook marriage and a lovely young family. When he admitted that it was all a clever ruse – “I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated.” – they dumped him as fast as they could and have never come back.
Most of the companies to stick with him to this day are golf or sports-related companies like Nike, and a Japanese firm that produces a pain medicine Tiger pitches in Japan. Tiger clearly doesn’t need the money, so it doesn’t really matter, but what he lost as a corporate spokesman who transcended sports is incalculable.
Something else also disappeared as one mistress after another appeared on TMZ or in the National Enquirer to tell her tawdry Tiger tales: Trust.
From the mid-1990s until November 2009, Americans saw a lot of Tiger. They felt that they knew him like a member of their family. They were traditional sports fans, for sure, but also grandmothers who couldn’t care less about any other athlete but who planned their Sundays around Tiger’s tee time.
Over the years, a blind reverence developed for Tiger, an adoration that was shaken to its core by the run-in with the fire hydrant. Over time, it has been replaced by a public wariness that wisely extends beyond Tiger to all well-known athletes. If you couldn’t trust Tiger, who could you trust?
We also know that Tiger’s golf game suffered greatly in his very public fall from grace. The humiliation Tiger suffered shattered his aura of athletic invincibility. All of a sudden, he was beatable on a golf course.
The day of the accident, he had won 14 majors and 71 PGA Tour titles. Ten years later, those totals are 15 majors and 82 titles. Not bad, but certainly not what we would have predicted for Tiger had we ventured a guess on Thanksgiving Day 2009.
To be sure, the dominance of a 33-year-old golfer would have been expected to tail off over the next 10 years of his career, especially for a man prone to injury. But certainly not that dramatically. There had even been heady talk of Tiger winning several majors in 2010 to get close to Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 because his favorite courses were hosting that year: Augusta National, Pebble Beach and St. Andrews.
But it was not to be, a familiar refrain in the 10 years that have passed in the life of Tiger Woods since that fateful day in 2009.
