Back in February, Tiger Woods was involved in a car crash where his SUV rolled over on the side of the road in Los Angeles. Details were (and are) fairly scant, but we do know he was speeding during the wreck and hit a tree going 75 mph. The speed limit on the street was 45 mph.
Woods shattered some bones in his right leg and got a rod in his tibia and needed some pins and screws to stabilize his ankle. Woods remained mostly silent about the crash, but that changed on Tuesday Nov. 30 when he held a press conference to answer some questions in the broadest possible way.
However, he was still fairly reticent about the incident, saying he was “lucky to be alive” and fortunate to “still have the limb.”
He’s come a long way, he said, according to Golf.com.
“It’s hard to explain how difficult it has been just to be immobile for the three months, just laying there,” he said. “There were some tough times in there, there were some really, really tough times. The pain got pretty great at times, but they helped me get through it and I’m on the better side of it.”
Here’s a sample of what it looked like.
Woods was in a hospital bed for three months and completely dependent on others, which he said was new and difficult to him. The pain was incredible and so were the mental challenges, the star athlete said.
Recovery was slow but there were some bright spots, like when he could go outside for the first time since the accident.
“You know, eventually I got to a point where they could wheelchair me outside safely and I could feel the sun,” he said. “It’s little things like that added up.”
Wheelchairs gave way to crutches and Woods said he realized just how big his house really was.
“Eventually when I started crutching around the house, I never — I built a really nice house, but I didn’t realize how big it was until I started crutching around.”
So what about the thing on everyone’s mind? Is he coming back to golf? The answer is maybe.
“I’ll put it to you this way: As far as playing at the Tour level, I don’t know when that’s going to happen,” he said.
Woods seemed to be accepting of some harsh realities.
“I don’t foresee this leg ever being what it used to be, and I’ll never have my back to what it used to be, and the clock’s ticking,” he said. “I’m getting older, I’m not getting any younger. All that combined means that a full schedule and a full practice schedule and the recovery that it would take to do that, no, I don’t have any desire to do that.”
Time will tell what happens, obviously. Woods did leave the door open for a return, and golf is one of those sports you can play professionally a lot longer that say, basketball.
The press conference did show one thing, however. Woods the public persona is back.