Tiger Woods loses his licence for five years after a reckless-driving plea

Tiger Woods walked into the Martin County courthouse in Stuart, Florida, shortly after 8 a.m. on 2 September and left with a five-year driving ban, $1,500 in fines, and no jail term.

Prosecutors reduced a March charge of driving under the influence with property damage to willful reckless driving, a second offence. A second charge, refusal to submit to a lawful urinalysis, was also reduced. Woods pleaded no contest to both. Judge Darren Steele imposed two five-year licence suspensions to run at the same time, a $1,000 fine on the driving count and a $500 fine on the refusal count. His lawyer, Douglas Duncan, said the fines would be paid that day. Steele warned Woods that a violation means jail.

The crash on Jupiter Island

On 27 March Woods, who is 50, clipped a pickup with his car on Jupiter Island. The car rolled. He crawled out through the passenger door. Neither driver reported injury. Body-camera video released in April showed the scene after the rollover.

He took a breath test and registered 0.0. Deputies still judged him impaired by medication or another drug and asked for a urine sample. He refused. He was booked on two misdemeanours, pleaded not guilty the same month, and later received permission to seek treatment outside the United States. Five months later he changed the plea.

Vanessa Trump accompanied him into the building. He did not answer questions on the way out.

What the plea buys and what it costs

A no-contest plea lets the court impose punishment without a formal admission of guilt. It also avoids a trial that would have put the body-camera file, the refusal, and the treatment petition in front of a jury. The five-year ban is the real price. Woods lives and trains in a part of Florida where a car is the default way to move. He can hire drivers. He cannot, under Steele's warning, sit behind the wheel.

Golf's calendar does not require him to drive to a tee. It does require him to be present, on time, at courses that sit a long way from one another. The legal file is now a supervision file. Any traffic stop in the next five years becomes a jail question before it becomes a golf question.

The March arrest was the second time Woods has faced a serious driving case. The reduced charge is written as a second offence. That label is why the suspension lasts five years rather than a shorter first-offence term. The court has closed the criminal case on the terms Steele read out. The ban is the part that will still be running when the next season starts.