Will crash shake golf from its dependency on Woods?

Tiger Woods’ latest fall from grace poses questions for the future running of men’s professional golf as well as the personal life of the 15-time major champion.

Such has been Woods’ standing in the game, his influence has grown with seniority despite a history of wayward driving stretching back almost two decades.

Never mind the multiple infidelities revealed after hitting a hydrant and tree (2009), a reckless driving conviction (2017) and a high speed crash that miraculously involved no other vehicle (2021), Woods has been golf’s go-to guy.

Last Friday, he flipped his Range Rover on a quiet residential street on Florida’s Jupiter Island and the world was treated to another disheveled mugshot of one of sport’s most famous faces.

Charges of driving under the influence (despite passing a breathalyser test for alcohol), refusing a urine test and property damage will follow due process.

Meanwhile, we wait for a response from Woods and wonder if he will show up at Augusta for next week’s Masters. The odds are against.

And already observers are wondering whether this is the incident that should finally shake golf from its Tiger Woods dependency, because the sport has repeatedly seemed duty bound to turn to the 50 year-old to shape its future.

Augusta wanted a new public nine-hole golf course – “The Loop”. Let’s get Tiger to design it.

The PGA Tour sets ups a committee to decide its future shape. Let’s get Tiger to chair it.

The US needs to win back the Ryder Cup. Let’s get Tiger to be Captain America.

The list goes on.

Woods has been a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board since August 2023 and vice chairman of the PGA Tour Enterprises board for the past two years.

The tour also brought in a special rule to make Woods eligible for all of their big money Signature Events, even though the current world number 3,736 has completed all four rounds in only four tournaments since 2020.

His TMRW Sports company, in conjunction with Rory McIlroy, set up the TGL Indoor league, supported by the PGA Tour. Its second season concluded last Tuesday with a perspiring Woods making a TV ratings-boosting appearance in the finals.

“His on-course presence is matched by his voice or his off-course presence,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan told ESPN four years ago, when his circuit was desperately trying to fight off the threat of the breakaway LIV Golf league.

“I think his peers look at him as a leader; the leader on the golf course, but also a leader off of it.”

But for how much longer?

Will Woods be present for the scheduled opening of “The Loop” next week?

Or will he be lying low, as he has done when previous car crashes have revealed a troubled side to his life?

And if he does disappear from the fray, how can he continue to chair the US tour’s future competitions committee? Bosses want the time ahead mapped out by the end of June – for them the timing could not be worse.

This might be a dawning moment, when the golfing world realises that someone capable of winning a record-equalling 82 PGA Tour titles might not be the best qualified to shape its future.

Holing pressure putt after pressure putt to dominate golf tournaments does not equip one to understand a balance sheet, cashflow projection or forecast rights revenues.

Such talent and sporting temperament did put him in a spotlight that no other golfer has ever endured and it would seem such scrutiny for a fundamentally shy man may have been too much to bear.

And so even on golfing matters, Woods credentials are being questioned. Is he the best man to lead a Ryder Cup team? He only appeared on one winning side in eight attempts and often gave an impression that would rather be elsewhere.

Furthermore he was too busy to captain the 2025 team and has not exactly jumped at the chance of doing the job next year.

American officials want their captain appointed quickly and Woods is hardly in the right place to be able to accept their job offer. They are likely to be actively trawling an alternative list, set to be headed by former Open champion Stewart Cink.

Another alternative might have emerged in Gary Woodland, a vice captain at Bethpage last year. Woodland’s stirring Houston Open win last Sunday, his first since brain surgery 30 months ago, came three weeks after revealing a PTSD diagnosis and is the stuff of sporting legend.

Woods has often been lauded for his comebacks from injury which have fed his remarkable reputation, but Woodland has achieved his with a grace that has always seemed beyond his near namesake.

Of course, Woodland has never led the harshly spot-lit life of Woods, but his openness regarding his struggles is an interesting counterpoint to Tiger’s ultra private existence.

Dangerously, it takes car smashes for the problematic side of the former world number one’s life to be revealed.

And this latest fender bender might be the one that finally illuminates dashboard warning lights for those bosses who have always so hastily turned to Woods in the past.