By Michael Phillips | Thunder Report
Four days after Tiger Woods was arrested on suspicion of DUI following a rollover crash on Jupiter Island, Florida, the probable cause affidavit was released Tuesday morning — and it answers several questions the sheriff’s initial press conference left open. The answers are not good for Woods.
Here is what we now know.
The Pills Nobody Mentioned Friday
When Sheriff John Budensiek held his press conference Friday evening, he told reporters there were no drugs or medication found inside Woods’ vehicle. That was accurate — but incomplete.
According to the affidavit, during a search of Woods’ person following his arrest, deputies found two white pills inside his left pants pocket, marked “M367” — identified as hydrocodone, a prescription opioid used to treat severe, chronic pain.
They weren’t in the car. They were on him.
Woods told deputies he takes “a few” types of prescription medication and had taken his medication earlier that morning. He denied consuming alcohol — confirmed by two breathalyzer tests that registered 0.000 — and said he had not taken any illegal substances.
This is not the first time hydrocodone has appeared in a Tiger Woods DUI case. The toxicology report from his 2017 arrest — when police found him asleep at the wheel of a running vehicle with damage to the driver’s side — showed he tested positive for five different drugs, including hydrocodone. Nine years later, the same drug.
What Caused the Crash
Woods told Deputy Tatiana Levenar of the Martin County Sheriff’s Office that he was coming from his nearby home when he looked down at his cell phone and changed the radio station — and did not notice the pickup truck ahead of him had slowed to turn into a driveway.
The affidavit states that Woods crossed a double solid line — a no-passing zone — to overtake the truck and its pressure-cleaning trailer, clipped the rear of the trailer, and his Range Rover rolled onto the driver’s side.
He climbed out through the passenger window and was standing by the vehicle when deputies arrived.
The Condition Deputies Found Him In
The affidavit paints a detailed picture of Woods’ physical state in the aftermath of the crash. Deputy Levenar noted that Woods was sweating profusely despite sitting in an air-conditioned vehicle. When he removed his sunglasses, she observed his eyes to be “bloodshot and glassy” with “extremely dilated” pupils. His movements were described as “lethargic and slow.” He was limping and stumbling to the right.
He also had persistent hiccups throughout the entire investigation.
Woods explained his physical condition to deputies himself — telling them he has had seven back surgeries and more than twenty operations on his leg. He was wearing a compression sleeve over his right knee. The sobriety tests were conducted while he was seated, to account for his physical limitations.
He still struggled. According to the affidavit, during four separate field sobriety tests, Woods started exercises before being instructed to do so, failed to count steps correctly, could not keep his head still during the eye-tracking test despite repeated instruction, and did not maintain contact between his hands during the palm pat test. Deputy Levenar concluded that Woods’ “normal faculties were impaired, and he was unable to safely operate the motor vehicle.”
He was formally placed under arrest just after 3 p.m. He was subsequently taken to Cleveland Clinic ER South, where he refused all medical treatment, then transported to Martin County Jail.
The Legal Exposure — And a New Florida Law
Woods refused a urine test at the jail, which was his right. He was read Florida’s implied consent warning before refusing. But that refusal, which once carried only administrative consequences — a license suspension — now carries criminal weight under a law that changed just five months ago.
“Trenton’s Law,” which took effect in October 2025, makes refusal to submit to a lawful DUI test a separate criminal misdemeanor, regardless of whether it is a first offense. Woods was charged under Florida Statute 316.1939(1)(E) as a result.
That refusal, intended to prevent authorities from confirming what substance he was impaired by, may have created a second problem bigger than the one it was meant to solve.
Legal experts who have reviewed the case publicly note that without the urine test, proving the DUI charge beyond a reasonable doubt becomes more difficult — but not impossible. Prosecutors can use deputy testimony, body camera footage, and dashcam video, all of which the affidavit confirms were recorded. And because Woods has a prior DUI-related conviction from 2017, he is unlikely to be offered the diversion programs typically available to first-time offenders.
“If the person has priors or the case is aggravated for some reason, the prosecutor might be pushing for jail,” one Florida defense attorney told a local outlet. “And those are cases that generally go to trial.”
Woods has a mandatory court appearance scheduled for April 23 in Stuart, Florida. He has made no public statement since the arrest.
The Bigger Picture
The affidavit is a legal document, not a verdict. Woods has not been convicted of anything. The charges are misdemeanors. His attorney will have considerable room to work, and Florida courts have seen celebrity DUI cases navigate to relatively minor outcomes before.
But the document released Tuesday is the most detailed window yet into what happened on South Beach Road on the afternoon of March 27 — and what it shows is a pattern that goes beyond a single incident. The same drug. The same road. A third crash. A body that has undergone more than 27 documented surgeries now carrying the weight of what that physical toll has required to manage.
Woods told reporters just last week, after a TGL match, that his body “doesn’t recover like when I was 24 or 25.”
“I’ve had a couple bad injuries here in the past year,” he said. “I’ve had to fight through, it’s taken some time. But I keep trying. I want to play.”
That was Tuesday. By Friday, he was in handcuffs three miles from his house.
Whatever this is — pain management gone wrong, dependency, something else entirely — it is no longer possible to call it an isolated incident. The affidavit makes that much official.
Thunder Report covers the stories that matter — beyond the headlines. Follow us at thunderreport.org.
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