Tiger Woods Injured In Car Accident

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Tiger Woods Injured In Car Accident

Posted at 11/28/2009 by Staff 0 Comment

Questions are surrounding the fiercely private Tiger Woods after he was involved in an car accident early Friday morning.

Around 2:25 a.m., his SUV hit a fire hydrant and a tree just feet from the golfer’s home in the gated community of Islesworth, Fla., according to Windermere Police Chief Daniel Saylor. Where was he going at that hour?

“When they got there, he was laying in the street,” Saylor told PEOPLE of the responding officers. “His wife had broken out the back window with a golf club to get into the vehicle and pull him out.”

How did wife Elin Nordegren use two golf clubs to smash out a back window and remove Woods from the vehicle? “She was frantic, upset,” Saylor said in a briefing Friday night. “It was her husband laying on the ground.”

“When [my guys] got there, they noticed he had lacerations to his lower and upper lip and blood in his mouth and he was in and out of consciousness,” Saylor says. Alcohol was reportedly not a factor. And, when asked if the couple had been arguing, Saylor said he had no knowledge of that.

Two troopers tried to interview the golfer Friday, but his wife said he was sleeping and they agreed to come back Saturday, Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Kim Montes said.

The accident came two days after the National Enquirer published a story alleging that Woods had been seeing another woman. The report alleged that he was even recently with the New York night club hostess, Rachel Uchitel, in Melbourne, where Woods competed in the Australian Masters.

“I resent my reputation is getting completely blasted in the media,” Uchitel has since said, admitting she has met Woods, but denying any affair. “Everyone is assuming I came out and said this. This is not a story I have anything to do with.”

The Florida Highway Patrol said tapes of the 911 call won’t be released until after they have been reviewed. “Right now we believe this is a traffic crash,” Montes said. “We don’t believe it is a domestic issue.”

Woods’s father-in-law, radio journalist Thomas Nordegren, meanwhile told The Associated Press in Stockholm that he would not discuss the accident. “I haven’t spoken to her in the last few … ” Nordegren said in a phone interview. “I don’t want to go into that.” He later told the newspaper Expressen he had not spoken to Woods “since he got back from the hospital.”

Mother-in-law Barbro Holmberg also refused to comment through her spokeswoman Eva Malmborg: “She doesn’t want to comment on private issues like these.”

Woods’s agent, Mark Steinberg, and spokesman Glenn Greenspan said there would be no comment beyond the statement posted Friday afternoon on Woods’s Web site, which read: “Tiger Woods was in a minor car accident outside his home last night. He was admitted, treated and released today in good condition. We appreciate very much everyone’s thoughts and well wishes.”

Woods is set to host the Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, Calif., which starts Thursday. He is scheduled to have his press conference Tuesday afternoon at Sherwood Country Club.