Body camera footage shows Tiger Woods called Donald Trump after crash
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A video screengrab showing Tiger Woods in the back of a police car after crashing his SUV and undergoing a sobriety test on on March 27.
PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM X
MIAMI – Tiger Woods was surprised he was being handcuffed after crashing his sport utility vehicle on March 27, according to body camera footage released on April 2.
“I’m being arrested?” Woods asked Martin County sheriff’s deputy Tatiana Levenar, who conducted a sobriety test on him.
“I do believe your normal faculties are impaired and you’re under an unknown substance, so at this time you’re under arrest for DUI,” Levenar told the 15-time Major champion. The footage also shows deputies removing two pills from Woods’ pocket.
“That’s a Norco,” Woods said after an officer removed the pills, which are painkillers. Authorities later confirmed that Woods was in possession of hydrocodone.
Woods contends that he was looking at his phone and changing the radio station when his Land Rover clipped the back of a truck and rolled onto its side on Jupiter Island, Florida.
The body camera footage also shows Woods informing a police officer that he was on the phone with US President Donald Trump shortly after his crash.
“Thank you so much. All right. You got it. Bye,” Woods said as he walked over to an officer who had beckoned him back to the crash scene, informing them that “I was just talking to the president”.
Woods is dating Vanessa Trump, the former wife of the president’s oldest child, Donald Trump Jr.
President Trump had announced during a Fox News interview that Woods would not be playing at the 2026 Masters, something that Woods had not yet announced publicly.
When asked about Woods’ crash, Mr Trump said he was a “very close friend”, adding: “I feel so badly. He’s got some difficulty. There was an accident and that’s all I know. He’s an amazing person, amazing man, but some difficulty.”
Mr Trump previously told Reuters that Woods seeking treatment was “a good thing” and he believed the golfer was “going to be terrific”.
The release of the footage comes one day after Woods was granted a request by a Florida judge to leave the US to enter a comprehensive inpatient treatment facility as he faces misdemeanour driving under the influence charges.
Martin County Court judge Darren Steele granted the motion to travel submitted by Woods’ attorney, Douglas Duncan, who cited the 50-year-old golf superstar’s need for an “intensive, highly individualised and medically integrated programme” away from media and public scrutiny.
Woods released a public statement on March 31 and entered a plea of not guilty in a Florida court to charges of misdemeanour driving under the influence with property damage.
The arrest affidavit stated a breathalyser test showed no signs of alcohol, but that Woods refused a urinalysis test for other drugs.
The affidavit stated Woods was “sweating profusely”, his movements were “lethargic and slow”, his eyes were “bloodshot and glassy”, his pupils were “extremely dilated” and that during the field sobriety exercises, Woods was “limping and stumbling to the right”. REUTERS
