THE STORY THAT WILL MAKE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER HEADLINES

News agency speculation over cause of Tiger

Woods' accident involves wife Elin

FROM THE AGE.COM.AU WEBSITE
By JOHN ELDER
Two days after a lurid story broke about Tiger Woods having an affair with a New York nightclub hostess, the golfing superstar was found by police lying on his back outside his Florida mansion, incoherent and bleeding - with his distressed wife standing over him with a golf club in her hands.
Woods' car was also in bad shape: it had apparently hit a fire hydrant before crashing into a tree in a neighbour's yard at 2.25am (local time) on Friday .
Elin Nordegren reportedly told police her husband had crashed after pulling out of the circular driveway, and she had been in the house when she heard the accident.
She said she had used the golf club to smash the back window to help get her husband out of the car.
Windermere police chief Daniel Saylor said the front windows of the Cadillac SUV were not broken and ''the door was probably locked''.
Mr Saylor said: ''She supposedly got him out and laid him on the ground. He was in and out of consciousness when my guys got there.''
Mr Saylor said Highway Patrol officers found Ms Nordegren ''frantic, upset'' and that Woods ''was mumbling but didn't say anything coherent''.
He said Woods had cuts to his upper and lower lips, and blood in his mouth. He was given first aid by police until an ambulance arrived, then treated at a local hospital and released in ''good condition''.
Some news agencies are speculating that Ms Nordegren had been arguing with her husband over the reported affair with New York hostess Rachel Uchitel, who was in Melbourne while Woods competed in the Australian Masters.
Ms Uchitel has denied an affair.
Celebrity news website TMZ claims that Woods told ''a non-law-enforcement type'' that Ms Nordegren scratched his face during an argument over the affair and that when he fled the mansion she followed him with the golf club. The report claims that as Woods drove off, his wife struck the vehicle and he became distracted and crashed.