LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Los Angeles County Sheriff plans to announce Wednesday what caused golf icon Tiger Woods to collide with an SUV in Southern California earlier this year. The athlete was seriously injured in the wreckage.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva had earlier said detectives had determined the cause of the crash, but he would not release it, citing privacy issues and a perceived need for Woods’ permission to release information.
The sheriff will present the findings of the recent traffic collision with Mr. Tiger Woods, to include the causal factors and collision report, discussed during a news conference Wednesday morning in Los Angeles, the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear on Tuesday whether Woods – who previously called his hunt ‘Privacy’ – had any involvement in the expected announcement.
Woods, who is from the Los Angeles area, was back home to host his PGA Tour, the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club, when the crash occurred on February 23rd.
He was driving a sports utility vehicle that lent the tournament to him when he hit an elevated median in Rolling Hills Estates, just outside Los Angeles. The SUV crossed through two oncoming lanes and uprooted a tree on a descending point known to police as wreckage..
The athlete is in Florida and recovering from several surgeries. Woods has never been a full year without playing, dating from his first PGA Tour tournament as a 16-year-old in high school.
Rory McIlroy, a four-time grand golf champion who lives near Woods, said he visited him on March 21st.
Spent a few hours with him, which was nice. “It was good to see him,” McIlroy told the Masters on Tuesday. “It was good to see him properly. If you hear about these things and look at the car and see the accident, you think he’s going to be in a hospital bed for six months. But things are actually going better with him. ”
Villanueva has been criticized for weeks for his remarks about the crash, including calling it ‘purely an accident’. and said there is no evidence of impairment. Documents shows that Woods told deputies that he did not know how the accident occurred and did not remember driving.
Detectives searched the data recorder of the 2021 Genesis GV80 SUV, known as a black box. Investigators did not request a search warranthowever, for Woods’ blood samples, which can be screened for drugs and alcohol.
In 2017, Woods went to a clinic to examine himself for help handling prescription drugs after a DUI charge in his home state of Florida.
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Associated Press golf writer Doug Ferguson contributed from Augusta, Georgia.