Tiger Woods is paying the price for his humiliating DUI arrest in more ways than one, after going home to face his furious girlfriend Vanessa Trump after eight hours behind bars.
The golf legend, 50, stunned the world when he flipped his Range Rover SUV onto its side in a high-speed crash on the millionaire’s playground of Jupiter Island on Friday afternoon, clambering out of the passenger window in a daze before being arrested.
He passed a breathalyzer test at the scene but refused a urine sample, with drug recognition experts ‘believing he was not impaired by alcohol, but on some type of medication or drug’ when he slammed into the back of a workman’s trailer on the sleepy residential road.
From there he was transported to jail, and his latest bleary-eyed mugshot released to the world, before being bailed out – again – by a close friend, who drove him home through the flashes of paparazzi cameras shortly after 11pm.
But the pain didn’t end there for Tiger, tail tucked firmly between his legs, because watching it all play out from a couple of miles down the road was his girlfriend of a year, and former wife of Donald Trump Jr, Vanessa.
The pair have been dating since last March, a relationship first revealed by the Daily Mail, but this is the first time she has been unwittingly thrust into the limelight by one of his many scandals. And it turns out she’s far from happy.
The Daily Mail has spoken to a source close to the couple, who reveals that Vanessa was waiting for Tiger when he returned home from the Martin County Public Safety Complex, where the pair then endured a long night of crunch talks.
‘She’s not happy at all,’ the source explains. ‘She’s both disappointed and a little bit p***ed, if I’m being honest. It’s a definite red flag and she told him that he’s going to get this sorted out, and that she’s going to require that. He has to get things under control, or she’s not going to stick around.’
While not yet an ‘ultimatum’, it is believed that Vanessa made her feelings very clear, adding yet more turmoil to Tiger’s situation as he heads into his latest legal battle, with the possibility of real jail time hanging over his head.
Just days earlier, the golf icon had made his return to the sport, sharing a kiss with Vanessa for the cameras at his TGL Finals in West Palm Beach. Three days later, their life was turned upside down and he was lucky to avoid serious injury.
‘This is a concerned girlfriend expressing boundaries and saying that he’s got to get his s*** together, like right now,’ the source adds.
‘He’s very apologetic, from what I’ve heard. [He] wants to fix this. He’s embarrassed, he’s mortified at all this… and this is really humiliating for it to happen again. And Vanessa is embarrassed too. All her friends are like “girl, what the hell?”‘
So what next for Tiger? In the wake of his previous DUI arrest, when he was found slumped behind the steering wheel of his car in 2017, he was shipped off to rehab for a painkiller addiction.
It remains unclear whether the 15-time major champion is still battling addiction demons, but it appears increasingly likely that another rehabilitation trip is on the cards for Woods.
‘Yeah, expect him to go into treatment soon,’ our source reveals. ‘They don’t argue very much, and she didn’t exactly say that they’re fighting, but she’s making her feelings abundantly clear. There’s no mistaking that this is a big deal to her.’
Earlier on Saturday, Vanessa broke her social media silence with a post about her daughter Kai, the absence of any Tiger-related comment making her feelings ever more clear.
Currently both of her children – Kai and Donald III – are away from Jupiter Island and with other family members, clearing the way for Vanessa and Tiger to have some very frank discussions.
While Tiger has also not yet spoken out, it would be no surprise to see an apology to Vanessa soon, as he fights to save not only his public reputation but his relationship too.
Tiger Woods