Tiger Woods was involved in a rollover crash in Florida on Friday before being arrested and charged with driving under the influence, causing property damage, and refusing to submit to a lawful urinalysis test.
This is the fourth time since 2009 that Woods has been involvecd in a car accident while (allegedly) driving impaired, and it’s the second time he’s been arrested for DUI since 2017.
On Saturday, NBC provided television coverage of third-round action of the PGA Tour’s Texas Children’s Houston Open. Shortly ahead of the broadcast, Paul Burmeister delivered sports updates from the NBC Sports studio desk.
As Burmeister informed viewers about the Woods crash and arrest, NBC showed footage of the Woods crash, but it was not the correct one. The footage was from the well-documented Woods crash from 2001 in the Los Angeles area, when Woods suffered significant leg injuries. It was not the crash Woods was involved in on Friday in Jupiter Island, FL.
This is a pretty rough mistake by NBC, but it also isn’t great that there are numerous Woods reckless driving incidents to choose from to even lead to a potential mix-up.
A few minutes later, the Texas Children’s Houston Open broadcast arrived, and the NBC broadcast crew addressed the Woods situation. NBC reporter Cara Banks provided the latest details about the incident before the broadcast booth of play-by-play announcer Dan Hicks and analysts Kevin Kisner and Brad Faxon offered their thoughts.
“Guys, it is all very disturbing news,” Hicks said. “And [Kisner], I know you spent a lot of time with Tiger this past winter. You are on his TGL team. The last time, in fact, Tiger competed in that event just on Tuesday. So, I’m sure very disturbing to hear all of this happen.”
“Very disturbing. You know, obviously, he was really working hard on his game, trying to practice and get back in shape. He signed up for the U.S. Senior Open yesterday. He was trying to do anything he could to come back and help our TGL team, get ready, and hopefully try and play the Masters. Just a really unfortunate incident, I guess. Brad, the only positive is that is nobody was injured in the incident, and we can all move forward and hopefully help him get better.”
“Exactly, [Kisner],” Faxon responded. “He’s the biggest needle-mover in our sport… And the fact that he was getting ready to practice at his home club and thinking, maybe he’s going to play the Masters. Everybody was kind of hoping for that, and we’re hoping for the best wishes for Tiger now as he goes forward.”
“Yeah, [Kisner], you talked about him being engaged in the game of golf, off the course as well; of course, the Future Competition Committee chairman,” Hicks added. “Very involved in where the direction the PGA Tour is headed down the road. Possible Ryder Cup captain. But that is all secondary for Tiger Woods, as he will take some time off the course to get things together.”
The golf side of things is indeed very secondary for Woods after a disturbing longtime pattern of behavior, and the golf media needs to do a much better job approaching the subject that way going forward as Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner detailed on Saturday.
Update: Dan Hicks delivered an apology on behalf of NBC about the Tigers Woods crash footage mishap.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.