Tiger Woods is facing an uncertain future off the golf course after his DUI arrest in Florida

Sto­ry by DOUG FER­GU­SON | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Tiger Woods got out of jail and in­to the pas­sen­ger seat of a dark SUV, his face as va­cant as his mug shot as he was dri­ven away to a fu­ture again filled with so much un­cer­tain­ty.

The next step legal­ly is fac­ing charges of dri­ving while in­tox­i­cat­ed, dam­age to prop­er­ty and re­fusal to sub­mit to a urine test, which led to him spend­ing eight hours Fri­day in the Mar­tin Coun­ty jail some 15 miles from his home on Jupiter Is­land, Flori­da.

His man­ag­er at Ex­cel Sports, Mark Stein­berg, did not re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment Sat­ur­day on Woods’ ar­rest.

As for golf, this comes at a bad time for the sport’s most in­flu­en­tial play­er.

Woods had said ear­li­er in the week he was try­ing to get in shape for the Mas­ters on April 9-12, though that was look­ing un­like­ly. He turned 50 at the end of last year. “This body, it doesn’t re­cov­er like it did when it was 24, 25,” Woods said ear­li­er this week.

He al­so was days away from a de­ci­sion on whether to be the next U.S. Ry­der Cup cap­tain for the 2027 match­es in Ire­land. Two of­fi­cials from the PGA of Amer­i­ca did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­turn phone calls from The As­so­ci­at­ed Press seek­ing com­ment.

And on April 5, he is sched­uled to be in Au­gus­ta, Geor­gia, with Mas­ters chair­man Fred Ri­d­ley to cel­e­brate a project at “The Patch,” the nick­name of a mu­nic­i­pal golf course where Woods’ de­sign team cre­at­ed a short course to go along with a ma­jor up­grade to the pub­lic course.

Woods al­so is the cen­tral fig­ure as chair­man of the Fu­ture Com­pe­ti­tion Com­mit­tee that is re­shap­ing the PGA Tour mod­el of tour­na­ments. Tour CEO Bri­an Ro­lapp pre­dict­ed mean­ing­ful progress this sum­mer.

The PGA Tour de­clined to com­ment on Woods’ ar­rest.

Now every­thing is on hold while Woods sorts through his sec­ond ar­rest in the last nine years, and his fourth car crash dat­ing to 2009.

Woods wait­ed un­til the sum­mer of 2024 be­fore de­cid­ing against be­ing Ry­der Cup cap­tain for the 2025 match­es in New York. The As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­port­ed in Feb­ru­ary the PGA of Amer­i­ca had a soft dead­line of the end of March for him to de­cide this time.

The PGA of Amer­i­ca al­ready is un­der scruti­ny be­cause of the un­ruly fan be­hav­ior at Beth­page Park last Sep­tem­ber, and this is not a time for an­oth­er mis­step. One per­son with knowl­edge of the process said the PGA of Amer­i­ca has a back­up plan of four po­ten­tial can­di­dates for the Ry­der Cup com­mit­tee to re­view if Woods de­clines — or if the PGA of Amer­i­ca moves on.

Mar­tin Coun­ty Sher­iff John Bu­den­siek said Woods’ Land Rover was go­ing at a “high speed” when it clipped the trail­er of a pres­sure clean­ing truck and flipped on its side. Woods was not hurt and climbed out through the pas­sen­ger win­dow. The dri­ver of the truck was not in­jured, ei­ther.

“Had there been some­body mov­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion, we would not be hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion say­ing there were no in­juries,” Bu­den­siek said. “This could’ve been a lot worse.”

This handout photo provided by the Martin County Sheriff's Office shows Tiger Woods, in Stuart, Fla., Friday, March 27, 2026. (Martin County Sheriff's Office via AP)

Uncredited

Bu­den­siek said in­ves­ti­ga­tors on the scene be­lieve Woods had tak­en some kind of med­ica­tion or drug. He de­scribed Woods as lethar­gic and said the golfer agreed to a breath test that showed “triple ze­roes” — no sign of al­co­hol. By de­clin­ing the urine test, the sher­iff said, of­fi­cials will nev­er get “de­fin­i­tive re­sults” about what caused the im­pair­ment.

That was con­sis­tent with his 2017 ar­rest on a DUI charge in Flori­da, when Woods was found asleep be­hind the wheel of a car with the en­gine run­ning, the right blink­er on, two flat tires and light dam­age to the dri­ver’s side.

Woods said it was a bad mix of med­ica­tion. Tox­i­col­o­gy re­ports lat­er re­vealed the ac­tive in­gre­di­ent for mar­i­jua­na, two painkillers, a sleep drug and an an­ti-anx­i­ety drug. There was no al­co­hol.

The pain med­ica­tion has been stan­dard fare for golf’s most cel­e­brat­ed — and wound­ed — play­er.

Af­ter four knee surg­eries — the last one a week af­ter he won the U.S. Open with shred­ded knee lig­a­ments and two stress frac­tures — Woods had four back surg­eries in four years (2014 through 2017) on­ly to re­turn to win the Mas­ters in 2019 in one of golf’s most as­ton­ish­ing come­backs.

And then came the most se­ri­ous crash of all, in Feb­ru­ary 2021. His SUV was go­ing 84 to 87 mph (135 to 140 kph) in an area with a speed lim­it of 45 mph (72 kph) when it veered off a coastal road in the Los An­ge­les sub­urbs, rolled down a hill and smacked in­to a tree.

He was not cit­ed and Los An­ge­les au­thor­i­ties did not seek a war­rant for blood sam­ples. The in­juries to his right leg and an­kle were ex­ten­sive — Woods lat­er said am­pu­ta­tion was con­sid­ered — and it was re­mark­able he even re­turned to play­ing.

Woods has nev­er been the same as a golfer since that ac­ci­dent. He has played 11 tour­na­ments in the five years since that crash. Of the four times he fin­ished 72 holes, he hasn’t been clos­er than 16 shots of the win­ner. He shares the PGA Tour’s all-time record with 82 wins.

But he re­mains a huge draw. Woods de­cid­ed to com­pete Tues­day night in the fi­nals of his in­door TGL league, and view­er­ship spiked to near­ly 1 mil­lion, the sec­ond-high­est rat­ing be­hind Woods mak­ing his TGL de­but.

He made his pub­lic de­but at age 2 on “The Mike Dou­glas Show” and has been in the spot­light ever since, set­ting records that are like­ly nev­er to be bro­ken. He re­mains a cen­tral fig­ure in golf to this day, and the scruti­ny is as great as ever with so much on his plate. —(AP)