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February 25, 2021

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Woods undergoes surgery, police probe latest car crash

Source: Agencies | 00:00 UTC+8 February 25, 2021 | Print Edition

POLICE yesterday sought to determine what caused Tiger Woods to swerve off a Southern California road in his sport utility vehicle, colliding with a tree and rolling down a hillside in a crash that left the golf great seriously injured.

Woods, 45, was pried from the wreckage by rescue crews and rushed by ambulance from the scene of the Tuesday morning crash outside Los Angeles to nearby Harbor-UCLA Medical Center suffering what his agent described as “multiple leg injuries.”

A statement posted on Woods’ official Twitter account on Tuesday night said he had undergone a “long surgical procedure” to his lower right leg and ankle and was “awake, responsive and recovering in his hospital room.”

Compound fractures of his tibia and fibula — the two bones of his leg below the knee — were stabilized with a rod, and screws and pins were used to stabilize additional injuries to his foot and ankle, Dr Anish Mahajan, chief medical officer of Harbor-UCLA, said in the tweet. He also said that trauma to the muscle and other soft tissue of the leg “required surgical release of the covering of the muscles to relieve pressure due to swelling.”

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies responding to the wreck found no immediate indication that Woods had been under the influence of alcohol or drugs before losing control of his vehicle shortly after 7am.

Sheriff Alex Villanueva, however, said the golf star, who was “lucid” following the accident, appeared to have been going faster than normal for a downhill, curving stretch of road known by locals to be hazardous.

Video footage from the scene showed Woods’ dark gray 2021 Genesis sport utility vehicle badly crumpled and lying on its side near the bottom of the hillside, its windows smashed.

Woods’ injuries were not life-threatening, the sheriff said, but sports commentators were already speculating that the crash could end the career of the greatest golfer of his generation.

Woods is the only modern professional to win all four major golf titles in succession, taking the US Open, British Open and PGA Championship in 2000 and the Masters title in 2001, a feat that became known as the “Tiger Slam.”

But he has suffered years of injuries and undergone multiple surgeries on both his back and knees.

Woods, one of the world’s most celebrated sports figures, was the sole occupant of the car when it crashed near the suburban communities of Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes, the sheriff’s department said.

This is the third time Woods has been involved in a car investigation. The most notorious was the early morning after Thanksgiving in 2009, when his SUV ran over a fire hydrant and hit a tree. That was the start of shocking revelations that he had been cheating on his wife with multiple women.

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