A Very Sweaty Tiger Woods Called Donald Trump After His Car Wreck

Tiger Woods has been charged with driving under the influence and refusing to submit to a drug test, following his March 27 rollover crash in Jupiter Island, Florida. In documents and public remarks, police laid out some behaviors of Woods that suggested to them that he was impaired and could not safely operate a vehicle: Woods provided evasive answers to their questions, had difficulties with the field sobriety test, and declined to provide a urine sample, which police suspect would have proven intoxication from prescription medication. In his press conference describing all this, Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek left out one thing which Woods did that many people tend to associate with culpability: In the moments after the crash, Woods used his phone to call Donald Trump.

In body camera footage released by the Martin County Sheriff’s Office and the Jupiter Island Police Department, and posted to YouTube by WPBF 25 News, an officer at the scene calls to Woods as he drifts away from the scene of the crash. The golfer turns back and can be heard wrapping up a phone call. “Thank you, thank you so much,” Woods says to the person on the other end of the line. “All right, you got it. Thank you. Bye.” He hangs up the phone and turns his attention to the officer, who has asked him to remain by the scene.

“Yeah, I was just talking to the President.” Woods says this with a little flip of his phone hand, and the feigned nonchalance of a desperate name-dropper. The officer declines the bait.

Stick with the video, and you will see one of greatest golfers of all time hiccuping through a long and awkward field sobriety test, before being handcuffed and placed in the back of a police vehicle.

Woods is reportedly dating Vanessa Trump, Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-wife, though he and the president were friendly before that. Donald Trump, when asked about the accident Friday, described Woods as a “very close friend.”

“I feel so badly,” said Trump, who in 2019 awarded Woods with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “He’s got some difficulty. There was an accident.”

Following the crash, Woods withdrew from his captaincy of the U.S. Ryder Cup team for 2027, and said in a statement that he is stepping away from golf “for a period of time to seek treatment and focus on my health.”