Tiger Woods' fiercest opponent is Tiger Woods himself

We are all fighting for Tiger Woods here, fighting for him to get his life, physically and mentally, to a better place. If this was Tiger v. Phil or Sergio or Chris DiMarco might have a different interest in solving problems. This, of course, is not that. Tiger became Tiger by often defeating, though not always, Phil & Co. That was fun, that was a game, that was driving and killing like most had never seen before. This is different. This is Tiger against him. A tiger against the pain of life.

Woods is a 50-year-old athletic icon – a true icon in an era of all things spectacular. He has two children with his ex-wife, who has three more children with his current partner. Tiger has a girlfriend with whom he has five children. The girlfriend has a former father-in-law who is the most powerful man in the world and the man who gave Woods his biggest honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, after winning the 2019 Masters. Woods won 14 Grand Slam events over a 12-year period. Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas and a host of others came of age in the decade-long wait between No. 14 and No. 15, 2019 Masters.

Twenty-two months after that victory, Woods drove on the side of an empty Los Angeles County road on a weekday morning, drove into a tree and nearly died. Don't call it an accident — that would be insulting to the many people who did everything in their power to save his life. You can say that winning takes care of everything. The sales people at Nike who released that name after the Woods scandal of the past were finally trying to move the product.

The great tragedy of modern life is that everything has become a the product. Golf is a the productaccording to PGA Tour brass. Journalism is a the product. Clicks are monetized. It's dying. Hogan, Palmer, Nicklaus and Watson were great golfers and unique people who captured our imaginations. But it wasn't the products. Tiger Woods has been packed and sold since he was 3 years old. Woods knows his state of mind that morning in February 2021, when he was extricated from a wrecked car. Crying for help is common sense but that crash should have been a cry for help. Finally, not much noise. His crash last week, a mile or so from his home in South Florida may have sounded like a lot of noise.

This time, his hand was forced, just as it was after his 2017 DUI arrest by police in Jupiter, Fla. In various golf circles and cloistered – on the Golf Channel, on websites and newsletters, in the release of the CEO of the PGA Tour – Woods' statement on Monday was met with relief and praise. He said “he is leaving for a long time to seek treatment and focus on my life.” He hopes he can get the treatment he needs with his consent. But there is a lot going on here.

As this second DUI charge in Florida made its way down the legal road, prosecutors would have required Woods to seek treatment. Woods is trying to avoid a prison sentence here, of any length. He is trying to avoid the spectacle of a public trial. There is nothing for him to fight for here. There are lawyers and counselors deep in his life. Signing up for treatment, voluntarily, was a wise and necessary first step in trying to keep a bad situation from getting worse.

Woods has been down the healing road before. In early 2010, weeks after running over a fire extinguisher in the middle of the night outside his home in Isleworth near Orlando, Woods reportedly checked into a treatment facility in Mississippi to deal with addiction problems. His 2017 application also required counseling. A statement is a statement. Last year, when Woods turned to X to announce his relationship with Vanessa Trump, he wrote, “Love is in the air and life is better with you by my side!” Please include air quotes all around he wrote. Does that sound like Tiger Woods to you? Monday's sobering announcement has a completely different tone, of course. We know nothing about Tiger's mental state, and he doesn't owe us that – anything really.

We owe you what every driver on earth owes every other driver and pedestrian and bicyclist and lost pet on earth, and that is alert, consistent driving. After his accident on Monday, you can see Woods in photos on the side of the road, golf shirt tucked neatly into his shorts, glasses on, cell phone to his ear. In those grainy photos, he looks as he did, years ago, an iconic golfer on another comeback trail. Pictures can deceive you just as statements can.

Tiger has pain and sleep problems. He has admitted that many times. As an athlete, his glory days are behind him. You know that, of course. He likes to say, “Father's time is never lost.” People take pain medication because they are in pain. People drive impaired because of a certain level of arrogance, and self-restraint. People go to recovery to find some kind of way forward. Sometimes it works. Because we love golf, because we admire what Woods is doing as a golfer, Tiger stories get attention here. For everything else, he's just another guy trying to figure it out. Except he has to do it for the whole world to watch.

We don't know who Tiger Woods was talking to on his cell phone, when he was on the side of the road on Friday afternoon. The most impressive thing he did that day was to apologize to the person driving the pressure washer truck. Fortunately, the driver was not injured. But his day was turned upside down, too.