The police keep trying to show up at Tiger Woods’ house and they keep getting shooed away. The Florida Highway Patrol is being treated like nearly everyone else seeking a private word with Woods through the years: No way, no how, no comment.
Sunday they were brushed off for a third consecutive day as they tried to investigate a Friday car accident. Woods instead issued a statement on his website.
“The only person responsible for the accident is me,” the statement read. “My wife, Elin, acted courageously when she saw I was hurt and in trouble.
“This is a private matter and I want to keep it that way. Although I understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible.”
Woods won’t be required to speak to officers following the accident. He just needs to provide his driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance. It’s unlikely he does more than what’s required; Woods’ ample legal team knows the stakes are high. It’s not the crime, after all; it’s the cover-up.
Woods has long been the dullest celebrity in the world. With an early morning, low-speed, single-car, end-of-the-driveway accident, though, he’s now in the middle of a cauldron of intrigue, heated by all the usual tabloid ingredients – money, fame, sex, mystery.
If he does ever speak to the police, it will be a jarring experience for someone who is fiercely private and obsessed with control. No one tells Tiger Woods what to do, with whom to speak and what questions to answer; at least not since he thrilled the golf world by winning the Masters at age 21.
It was the start of a legendary career that has him on the brink of billionaire status for swinging a golf club better than anyone on earth.
He has more handlers and yes men than you can count. Anyone who’s ever broken his privacy demands has been summarily fired – from lawyers to his first caddie.
Early Friday morning, though, Woods’ tranquil world was shattered along with the back window of his Cadillac Escalade. At 2:25 a.m. he tried to depart his home in a gated community outside of Orlando and managed an almost impossible driving trajectory – a 120-degree turn – and wound up hitting a fire hydrant and a neighbor’s tree.
As one person mentioned to me on Twitter: “He was a mailbox and a parked car away from the Tiger Slam.
YahooSports.com
11/30/9
Magnolia Tribune
