Chapter 72

Isleworth Golf Tiger’s SUV, $8,000. He’s cited for reckless driving, assigned four points on his driver’s license, and fined $164.

There’s a much bigger debt looming in terms of his public image, however. The first athlete to earn $1 billion, according to Forbes, has a PR “bill” that’s years overdue.

The Wall Street Journal has been investigating suspicions that Tiger’s atypical appearance on the August 2007 cover of Men’s Fitness was a negotiated trade-off with American Media, parent company to both the lifestyle magazine and the Florida-based National Enquirer. The Enquirer had planned to run a story about Tiger cheating on Elin with the hostess of a local restaurant, based on shadowy but provocative photos of the two having sex in a car in a church parking lot.

In 2007, Tiger’s expert PR team managed to make a “catch and kill” deal—the Enquirer dropped the salacious story, and soon afterward, readers of Men’s Fitness instead learned about the strength training behind Tiger’s “wonderful swing” and that “he and Elin often worked out together.”

But the latest National Enquirer headline—TIGER WOODS CHEATING SCANDAL—hit newsstands two days before Thanksgiving. The piece centered on thirty-four-year-old Vegas and New York City nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel, whom Enquirer reporters had witnessed entering Tiger’s hotel suite in Australia last month. The article quoted her telling a friend, “It’s Tiger Woods! I don’t care about his wife! We’re in love!”

Aware of the imminent article, Tiger made a wild play the day before it was published, setting up a call between Uchitel and his wife so Uchitel could assure Elin that the entire story was a lie.

“We talked about how I knew Tiger, how I knew his friends. How and why I was in Australia,” Uchitel said of the phone call. After half an hour of conversation, Elin seemed convinced. When the article hit newsstands the following day, no one appeared to give it any credence.

Oh my god, we’re going to slide right over this, Uchitel thought as she and Tiger texted each other on Thanksgiving Day. “We had gotten away completely unscathed in what could have been a complete nightmare.”

Their mutual celebration was premature.

Late Thanksgiving night, after Tiger took an Ambien and went to sleep, Elin picked up his cell phone. She wasn’t as convinced of his innocence as she’d let on.

Scrolling through Tiger’s phone, she soon found plenty of incriminating information—romantic and sexual texts to several women, including one to Uchitel sent earlier that day: You are the only one I’ve ever loved.

Elin sent out a lure around one in the morning. “I miss you,” she texted Uchitel from Tiger’s phone. “When are we seeing each other again?”

Uchitel responded right away, which was all the confirmation Elin needed. She immediately placed a call to the mistress.

“Hey babe, I thought you went to sleep,” Uchitel answered, expecting Tiger.

“I knew it was you,” spat Elin. “I know everything.”

“Oh f—,” said Uchitel, then hung up.

A groggy Tiger woke to an incensed Elin. He quickly grabbed his phone and locked himself in the bathroom. Not realizing how much Elin had already learned, Tiger texted Uchitel a heads-up, then called another of his mistresses, twenty-four-year-old Los Angeles cocktail waitress Jaimee Grubbs, pleading with her in a voicemail message to “please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and, uh, may be calling you.… just have it as a number on the voicemail. OK? You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. All right, bye.”

Tiger’s warning came too late. Elin had already found some texts and had left a message on Grubbs’s voicemail before dialing Uchitel. “You know who this is,” Elin said, “because you are f—ing my husband.”

After heated words were exchanged between the married couple, Tiger grabbed his keys and ran out.

“The latest news,” National Public Radio reports at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 29, “is that Florida Highway Patrol investigators hope to be able to speak to golfer Tiger Woods and his wife Elin today. They’re still trying to pin down exactly what happened early Friday morning.”

Elin told police that shortly after Tiger drove off, she’d heard a loud crash, so she raced over in a golf cart. Finding her husband slumped inside his locked Cadillac Escalade, which had run into a fire hydrant and a tree about 150 feet away, she’d taken a golf club from the cart and smashed out the back windows to reach him. Tiger wasn’t wearing shoes—or his seat belt—when Elin pulled him out.

The noise brought out the neighbors. “Help us,” Elin cried, asking them to call an ambulance.

When the police arrived, they found Tiger “unconscious and unresponsive,” though they were able to momentarily revive him. Elin denied that her husband had been drinking but showed police his bottles of prescription Ambien and Vicodin.

The public demands answers. Why didn’t Tiger speak to the police upon being treated and released from Health Central Hospital? Why was “no” checked next to “alcohol related?” on the police report prior to any actual investigation? More than 1,600 people email the Florida Highway Patrol.

“I’ve seen better work by a mall cop,” one writes.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING,” another email rages. “The FHP in this incident is being bullied, and mocked by Tiger Woods.… Shame on You FHP and get back to business.”

Six years ago this same weekend, the papers had all been breathlessly reporting news of Tiger and Elin’s engagement. Now they can’t stop speculating about Tiger’s infidelities. His first post-crash statement is inadequate against the onslaught. “Although I understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible” is his feeble response.

“How differently would this story have unfolded had an agent or P.R. person said at eight a.m. the next morning, ‘Mr. Woods was involved in a minor traffic accident coming out of the driveway of his home,’” says the Windermere mayor, Gary Bruhn. Instead, the lack of information only fanned interest. “Two hundred paparazzi and everyone from CBS to CNN to Al Jazeera! Paparazzi hanging from the trees! TMZ wanted to know what golf club Elin used.”

Citing unspecified injuries sustained in the crash, Tiger withdraws from the Chevron World Challenge, set for December 3–6, which he’d been scheduled to host and play in to benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation. Ticket holders are offered refunds. USA Today reports from California that opening-day attendance is 6,893, around half what it was two years earlier, in 2007, when Tiger won the tournament.

Though the withdrawal protects Tiger from facing the press at Sherwood Country Club, the news cycle is inescapable. While some of his colleagues take the high road—including Jack Nicklaus, who says that Tiger’s issues are “a private matter for him and his family”—others are more blunt.

Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik states that he’s “lost all respect” for the man he introduced to Elin, whom he considers a little sister. “My heart goes out to her,” he says. “Elin is having a very tough time.” Parnevik’s feeling especially upset about the situation “because me and my wife were at fault hooking her up with him.

“I vouched for the guy,” he laments. “I told her this is the guy that I think is everything you want. He’s true. He’s honest. He has great values. He has everything you would want in a guy. And uhh, I was wrong.”