Tiger Woods will not die from injuries suffered in Tuesday’s awful car crash in Los Angeles, and no one else was hurt in the incident. For these two outcomes, every reasonable person is grateful.
But consensus, it seems, ends there.
In the short time since the news of Woods’ crash emerged, reaction among golf fans has been split between questions about the crash’s cause and revulsion at those questions. It’s the pills again, one side speculates; It’s too soon, the other side responds. And in the back-and-forth that follows, both sides dig in.
But any honest discussion of Woods’ crash must begin with two acknowledgements. First, in 2017, Tiger was arrested for driving while intoxicated with five different drugs in his system; second, no publicly available evidence suggests that Tiger was impaired on Tuesday.
We are left, then, with nothing but questions. And it is never too early to ask them. If it’s not too early for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department to question the crash’s cause, then it’s not too early for reporters and fans to do the same — so long as the people asking questions understand that the absence of immediate answers is, for now, no evidence of anything at all.
Neither is there any inconsistency between asking those questions and hoping for the best outcome. There is nothing inconsistent between praying that Tiger recovers enough to live a normal life and wanting to know how this happened. There is nothing inconsistent between hoping Tiger can be there physically for his children and scrutinizing the crash that might change his life forever.
You can want the best for Tiger and also want answers to the myriad questions of the past few days.
There was his TV appearance during the Sunday round of the Genesis Invitational, during which his posture was slouched and his eyes appeared to be not fully open (“notably tired,” Golf.com’s Dylan Dethier described him the day before the crash). The next day, Tiger still appeared uncomfortable, according to The Shotgun Start co-host Andy Johnson. And for good reason: Woods underwent his fifth back surgery just two months prior.
For these and other questions, it is not difficult to imagine perfectly innocent explanations. Given Woods’ 2017 DWI arrest, though, other explanations also are not hard to imagine.
That said, the lack of answers to these questions is not evidence of guilt. In fact, it’s not evidence at all — it’s a lack of evidence altogether. For now, the only publicly available evidence affirmatively pointing one way or another is the impression of a sheriff’s deputy that Woods showed no signs of impairment. That isn’t dispositive, but at the moment, it’s the only evidence we have.
The absence of answers isn’t a basis for jumping to conclusions. But it is a reason to keep asking questions — so long as the people asking those questions acknowledge that the elusiveness of answers isn’t evidence of guilt.
And if the yet-unanswered questions are presented so delicately, maybe the people worried that it’s too soon won’t feel the same mistrust the next time a tragedy comes packaged with red flags.
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