Tiger Woods says he was 'talking to the president' after crash

Body camera footage released by the Martin County Sheriff's Office on April 2 puts an unusual political frame around Tiger Woods' arrest on a quiet Florida road six days earlier. The footage shows Woods telling a deputy at the scene that he had just gotten off the phone with "the president," referring to President Donald Trump. That detail, now part of the official public record, surfaces pointed questions about transparency and political proximity when a sitting president's close associate is documented inside an active law-enforcement action.

The verified sequence begins just after 2 p.m. ET on March 27, when Woods' Land Rover crossed double solid lines on South Beach Road in Jupiter Island, near the home he has maintained there since 2007, and struck a pickup truck towing a pressure washer trailer. The collision caused his SUV to roll. Woods, 50, crawled out through the passenger side uninjured; the other driver was also unharmed. Woods told deputies he had been distracted before impact: "I looked down at my phone, and all of a sudden – boom."

The arrest record is precise. Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek confirmed Woods was charged with DUI with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful test. Deputies described him as lethargic, sweating, with bloodshot and glassy eyes and dilated pupils, while seated in an air-conditioned patrol car. A breathalyzer returned 0.00, but he refused a urinalysis. A search of his person turned up two white pills marked "M367" in his left pants pocket, later identified as hydrocodone, a prescription opioid. When asked about prescription medications, he said, "I take a few." He was transported to the Cleveland Clinic ER South, where he refused treatment, then booked at Martin County Jail at 3 p.m. and released after an eight-hour hold at 11 p.m. under Florida law. During the field sobriety assessment, Woods mentioned he had undergone seven back surgeries and 20 leg surgeries.

The Trump disclosure did not come from Woods' camp: it came through the body camera footage itself. Trump confirmed the call to the New York Post, calling Woods "a very close friend" who is "doing great" despite living with "a lot of pain." He told reporters: "I feel so badly. He's got some difficulty. There was an accident and that's all I know." The relationship is also personal: Woods is dating Vanessa Trump, 48, ex-wife of Donald Trump Jr., and the two appeared publicly together at the TGL indoor golf finals on March 24, three days before the crash, where Woods had made his first return to competitive golf since the 2024 British Open.

Woods' attorney Blair Duncan, who also represented him after his 2017 DUI arrest, waived arraignment, entered a not-guilty plea, and secured court approval for overseas inpatient treatment. The filing cited privacy as a clinical concern: "the out-of-country treatment facility recommendation is based upon the Defendant's complex clinical presentation and the urgent need for a level of care that cannot safely or effectively be done within the United States, as his privacy has been repeatedly compromised." Woods posted a statement calling the treatment "necessary in order for me to prioritize my well-being and work toward lasting recovery." He will miss the 2026 Masters, the second consecutive year away from Augusta.

This is at least the fourth auto-related incident involving Woods and his second DUI arrest, following a 2017 Jupiter arrest and a severe 2021 rollover in Rolling Hills Estates, California, that required a rod, screws, and pins to stabilize comminuted fractures in his right leg. Since that California crash, he has played only 11 tournaments, failing to finish within 16 shots of the winner in any of the four events where he completed 72 holes.

The body camera footage adds one detail the charging document did not require but the public record now contains: in the minutes after his SUV rolled on South Beach Road, Woods was in contact with the sitting president of the United States. Whether that proximity shapes the legal proceedings ahead is a question the courtroom, not the body cameras, will answer.