Bodycam footage of Tiger Woods’s arrest for DUI shows the golfer looking surprised when he was handcuffed by police officers at the scene of a vehicle crash last week.
“I do believe your normal faculties are impaired, and you’re under an unknown substance, so at this time you’re under arrest for DUI,” Martin County Sheriff’s deputy Tatiana Levenar told Woods after officers conducted a series of field sobriety exercises on the 50-year-old.
“I’m being arrested?” Woods asked Levenar. She responded: “Yes, sir.”
The footage, obtained Thursday by the Guardian, also shows the moment officers found pills in Woods’s pocket. “That’s a Norco,” he tells them, a reference to a painkiller later identified as hydrocodone, a prescription opioid. Woods has suffered from back pain for some time, having had multiple surgeries to address various injuries.
Woods told officers he was looking down at his phone and changing the radio station before the incident, in which his Land Rover clipped a truck and rolled on to its side. “I looked down at my phone, and all of a sudden – boom,” Woods tells deputies in the video. Woods pleaded not guilty to DUI and demanded a jury trial after the crash.
In the footage, as a deputy instructs him to wait nearby while taking a phone call following the crash, Woods is also heard telling the officer that he had just gotten off the phone with “the president”.
The call itself is not captured on the body camera video, but Woods can be heard saying “thank you, thank you” as he appears to end the conversation while holding his phone. It was not clear which president he was referring to, though Woods has been in a relationship with Donald Trump’s former daughter-in-law, Vanessa Trump, for more than a year.
Donald Trump, who awarded Woods the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019, said Tuesday that he’s spoken with Woods since the incident, noting the golfer “lives a life of pain” due to his injury history but is “doing great”.
“He tested negative for alcohol, as you know, and he is under a tremendous physical pressure from his various ailments, you know, the back and the leg,” Trump said in a phone interview with the New York Post. “He lives a life of pain. He has a lot of pain. He’s an amazing guy. He’s an amazing athlete. He does have pain.”
Trump added: “He doesn’t have an alcohol problem, but he does have pain.”
According to Levenar’s arrest report, Woods was hiccuping while he was questioned. He also had to be told to keep his head still.
“Based on my observations of Woods, how he performed the exercises and based on my training, knowledge, and experience, I believed that Woods normal faculties were impaired, and he was unable to safely operate the motor vehicle,” Levenar wrote.
In the bodycam footage he denies drinking any alcohol on the day of the crash but admitted he had earlier taken “a few medications”. Woods took a breath test after the crash, which showed no signs he had drunk alcohol but police said he refused a urine test. He was released on bail eight hours after his arrest. His case is due back in court on 5 May for a hearing that will assess both parties’ readiness for trial.
On Tuesday, Woods said he is stepping away from golf “to seek treatment and focus on my health”.
Woods has barely played in recent years while working his way back from multiple injuries, including a ruptured achilles tendon. He has not competed on the PGA Tour since July 2024, although he appeared last Tuesday in the TGL indoor league he co-founded with Rory McIlroy.