hi there, i'm kristen sze. welcome to our daily program called "getting answers." we're asking our experts every day at 3:00 to get answers in realtime. today we're talking about tiger woods who was injured in a car crash in los angeles. i'm sure you heard. according to the police department, this rollover happened at 7:00 this morning between rolling hills estates ain rancho palos tiger suffered leg injuries in

the crash. we are told it's non-life-threatening and he suffered compound fractures. wee we're waiting for a news update soon, and we're hoping it will give us more information on tiger's condition, so we'll bring that to you when it starts. joining me to talk about this, my 4:00 co-anchor larry beil and the columnist. larry, before we get to any kind of injury and what it means for tiger's future and what he's already been through, just walk us through what we know so far. larry, hold on tight, we're getting word that this news conference is starting right now. we'll take you to southern california. >> captain james powers and other members of the executive command staff. also joining us today is l.a. county fire chief gerald osby. now i'd like to introduce the

sheriff of los angeles county, alex villanueva. >> thank you, captain mendoza. today at 7:12 in the morning, lamitas sheriff's station received a phone call of a rollover collision at rancho palos verdes drive. we went there and learned that the sole occupant was tiger woods, and deputies at the time, they did not see any evidence of impairment, anything of concern. obviously the life-setting measures that had to be taken for the occupant in the vehicle and chief osby will speak to that regard, and it was a solo vehicle. unfortunately, during the course of the investigation of this, there was another traffic collision happened with people being lookie-loos, but

thankfully there was no injuries associated with that. the vehicle traveled several hundred feet from the center divider at the intersection and rested on the west side of the road in the brush, sustained major damage to the vehicle. you've seen all the images of that. and with that our lamita sheriff station will be conducting the traffic investigation and they'll take from days to several weeks to get the whole thing together. once the investigation is completed, we will provide a detailed report. it will be available, you know, based on requests, and we will not discuss it any further after that point. i want to introduce chief osby, l.a. county sheriff's department. >> good afternoon. i'm fire chief darrell osby of the los angeles county fire department. at approximately 7:22 this morning, resources from los angeles county fire station 106

received a report of a solo vehicle accident at the intersection of hawthorne boulevard and palos verdes drive north in rolling hills estates. upon arrival at the scene of the incident with sheriffs on scene, our resources and personnel from the los angeles fire department, we observed a rollover accident with one person trapped. the person trapped was extricated by the los angeles county fire department personnel. earlier it was stated that the jaws of life was utilized to extricate the person trapped. it was later determined by our personnel that a holidant tube, which is used for prying, and an ax was also used to pry the person free from the vehicle. the person was

incident, and because of the fact they needed to be transported, they were transported to ucla harbor hospital because of the extrication, and harbor hospital is also a trauma center. as indicated earlier, there was also a second vehicle accident with no injuries. thank you. >> and the vehicle involved is a 2021 genesis. it's a mid-size suv. [ speaking spanish ] >> all right, now, sheriff villanueva is giving the same information presumably in spanish now, so, larry, let's go ahead and come back and talk

about this. you know, the good thing is we are understanding it is not life-threatening. ron, thanks for joining us for this conversation as well. but just talk about what this means for tiger. larry, i'm going to let you take it because you've been following his comeback, if you will, how he's been building back, he has back injuries. what are we looking at here? >> it's unclear what his golf future is. i think i could speak for all golf fans looking at this situation, and everybody is just thank of the and grateful that he's alive, that we can talk about tiger woods having a future, whether that means he's going to be winning golf tournaments in the future, who knows, but he's alive and well and we don't have another kobe bryant situation which was just a little more than a year ago, and i know a lot of people in southern california immediately thought to that. i want to come back to one thing we heard in the news conference, brief as it was, but the sheriff mentioned no evidence of impairment. and i think that's really important because when i first

saw the video this morning, my first thought was, well, i'm glad he's alive. my second thought was my mind going back to a few years ago when tiger had a procedure on his back and then just a short time later was pulled over for driving while impaired, and people were wondering what had happened. basically he mixed his medications and created a cocktail that left him pretty woozy and unable to drive. so we know now, at least preliminarily, that it appears that no narcotics were involved. tiger just, i think a couple days before christmas, had another procedure on his back, his fifth now, and so whether he's able to come back, i think the bigger concern is obviously going to be with his legs. if he does have compound fractures, the rehab from that will take a while. he already kind of indicated this past weekend, not saying so in so many words, but paraphrasing with jim nantz during coverage of the genesis

invitational that playing the masters in april was probably unlikely. you could just read his face because he hasn't really even started taking swings yet. so it's going to be a while before we see tiger woods back on a golf course, but again, i think we're all grateful that we'll see him again just as a human living his life and hopefully back out on the course at some point playing practice rounds and having fun with his son charlie. >> i'm seeing so many questions flying in from our viewers. you know, what was he doing at that country club? was he hitting any balls? was he playing any holes? was it just a photo shoot, and ron, maybe you can catch us up to date on what he was doing down there. >> my understanding is, as you probably know, he lives in south florida just north of miami. he was in los angeles, which is his hometown, for the genesis invitational of which he was the host, and it benefits his foundation. so he was at riviera country

club on sunday and presented the trophy to max homa who won the event. my understanding is tiger woods had a two-day shoot at rolling hills country club near where the accident occurred yesterday and today. yesterday comedian david spade and former nba player duwayne wade both posted photos and videos on social media of them with tiger on the golf course. of everything i've read and heard, he was not playing golf, he was not hitting balls, he was just sort of giving lessons and filming, you know, shooting video for golf tv, which is an entity he has an endorsement contract with. so i believe it was just yesterday and today. obviously, he didn't make it to the course today and that's why he was in los angeles and near this rolling hills country club. >> larry, i just want to jump in with your questions for ron, because i'm sure you have many after this question.

i do wonder, ron, i did a quick google search. he's not in the top 50 right now. i think he's around 50 in terms of the pga rankings. but, of course, he means so much more than any ranking could indicate. can you talk a little bit about the importance of tiger really staying in and playing and what that means for the sport of golf? >> it means a lot, obviously. he transformed the game in many ways. but the reality is he was sort of on the down side of his career, anyway, because of his perpetual injuries. as larry referenced, he had his fifth back surgery within the last two months. was recovering slowly from that. he's 45 years old. so as much excitement and buzz as he brings to the game, that had started to wane a bit, anyway. and i think he hoped, obviously, to return, but as larry mentioned, also in his interview with jim nantz on sunday, it

sounded like it was a slow process and the masters in april was unlikely. but all that said, anytime tiger is sflovinvolved in a tournamen brings a certain magnitude, a certain awareness that no other golfer can really create. he earned that, obviously, by winning 82 times, by winning 15 major championships, and sort of electric t electrifying the game in many ways from the late 1890s up until now. >> we want to talk a little about that with ron and

they arranged this while efls in lo -- he was in los angeles to fulfill his hosting duties at the tournament in riviera.

you're right, if you saw sunday's interview, he didn't really look right. he looked like his eyes were kind of -- i don't know if glassy is the right word, he just didn't seem like he was all there, like maybe he's been struggling with pain. so, yeah, when i heard the news this morning, i certainly had the same thought you did, but it sounds like he wasn't impaired, at least based on the earlier results. >> hang on one second, guys. let me ask the producer how much time before we come back to our show? we are live on abc7 right now. we're here talking to the sports director, ron crichek. we learned that tiger was not airlifted this morning. rescuers used a backboard and splints as they moved him from the scene. that is standard for this kind of accident. and also you probably heard there were no jaws of life used

at the accident scene. they used a different prying tool to get tiger woods out of that vehicle after the crash, so those were a couple of the initial reporting items that were mistaken or not quite right, so they corrected that. right now it does look like he has multiple fractures in his legs, went through a surgery for that. not life threatening is what we're hearing. ron, talk about tiger and his charities. randy says the first tee program and also tiger woods foundation. i know some of the benefits he had done had been in the bay area. can you talk about that for us? >> yeah, i believe it's mostly based in southern california where he grew up. but he has done a lot of work with stan in education. tiger hasn't done a lot with the media and stuff, but i think he has been dedicated to his foundation and the work he's done with kids. and as you know, probably very involved with his own kids,

quite recently appearing in playing ng an event with his son charlie a couple years ly he gives kids access to computers and such. i don't know how much of that is in the bay area. he obviously has >> to dovetail on that, the genesis is an event that is a huge fundraiser for charity, and i know a lot of people in the southern california area were just so happy they were going to play it this year, because obviously we're in pandemic conditions, and you don't have any fans, so there are concerns about, okay, what does this mean for the charities? tiger was there, all the golfers were there, and max homa, a cal

golf team star who won this event. all of the >> you, too? >> i'm merely a university of hawaii grad so i probably shouldn't have come on the show with you guys. we're the harvard of the south pacific. >> oh, stop. >> one of the things, and ron, you can talk about this a little bit stharks for guys they only know about the legend of the guy. when tiger was in his 20s, pretty much everyone else was showing up for second place. that's how dominating he was. 82 official pga tournament

victories, 16 measures. we're talking about a person who, most at the time he is definitely gl with two number he has with the pros is remarkable. >> yeah, max is almost 30, tiger is 45. so when tiger won the masters in 1997, which was his grand entrance to the sport, and he won the pebble

would have been in their formative years when they're very much idolizing someone like tiger, very much trying to chase that career path. so it was very meaningful for max homa, especially as a los angeles native, to win that tournament, to have tiger hand him the trophy and to sort of fulfill his dreams that really, in many ways, tiger sparked. a lot of players that are on tour now migrated to golf in large part because of tiger. you know, he didn't really diversify the game ethnically as maybe people expected, but he didn't sparked a lot of interest, brought more people to the game, more eyeballs and more athletes and has definitely impacted the game long term because of that.

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and it's just $5.99. only at jack in the box. so we do not look down on you at all. and we are back with larry biehl and the chronicle talking about tiger woods and the crash this morning. as you know, he was airlifted. we don't know how serious, but he had leg fractures and already he had back issues. all of this could be we're all rooting for him because he's such an icon in the sport. you and i both know that tiger has had a lot of ups and downs, not only in his career but in his personal life. >> he's certainly been more

interactive, more sociable than he used to be. he was very much a laser-focused, driven competitor at his paem of which explain,ex, and i don't travel as much as i used to. we had a bit of a personality transformation the last five years as he went through these health issues and back surjsz a -- surgeries and also appreciate raising his kids. he started playing again and memorably won the masters again in 2019. but as we've seen the last

. skpl now, obviously, today'stods unfortuna another day. it will be interesting to see if he can compete, even before today's incident. >> one thing we touched on, like kristen, you may not be watching pga every week, but especially with tiger around the sport, especially if he's wearing the trademark red polo shirt, the ratings skyrocket and there are so many golfers on tour today that, oh, their careers to tiger. a routine tour event in 2021 and it's a million bucks, where before it was a fraction of

that. ron, you could speak to this in terms of the specifics, but the impact of tiger wood being course -- i got to meet the top golfers in indiana ever, but the thing that's a maze lg. physical. these are pros of the last 20 years, maybe they wornl. many. we talked about the pre-tiger era era, he won the pro-am. that would have been unheard of

20 years ago. before tiger burst on the scene, i have no idea what the numbers were, but they were nowhere near what they are now, and that's directly attributable to the court sponsorship and all the troubles he brought to the game with his success. >> let's hope that max donates some of that 1.6 to his alma mater for the sake of youtube and everything else. it's just a huge difference between pre-tiger and post-tiger in terms of his impact on the pga tour. >> absolutely. >> gentlemen, we're going to take a short break on the air right now, but we can continue this conversation on

and we are back. larry, you know, i'm just looking at some of the tweets from athletes. "magic" johnson, lebron james, everybody this morning when they heard the news, it was a sick to my stomach feeling for a lot of people, i guess because so much has gone wrong in this past year. we lost kobe bryant and people are wondering, oh, my goodness. the good news is it sounds like he is stable now and it's leg fractures. >> yeah, i think everybody can just exhale and take a deep breath and say, okay, at least -- you know, leg injuries, you can come back from leg injuries. will he feel great walking 1 holes? i don't know. how long is that going to take? unclear. he's alive, hopefully soon will be well, and we'll see tiger woods on a golf course again sometime in the future. >> certainly. thank you, larry, so much, and

thank you to chronicle columnist ron kroichek. we'll see you a tonight, the breaking news as we come on the air. what authorities have just revealed after tiger woods was badly injured in that major car accident in california. the images all day today of tiger woods' car off the highway in l.a. county. the car found flipped on its side. the only vehicle involved. reports firefighters juiced an axe to rip open the windshield to get tiger woods out. tonight, his agent saying he suffered multiple leg injured and was rushed into surgery. the images of woods golfing with former nba star dwyane wade just yesterday. and what we just heard from tiger woods himself in an interview over the weekend after his fifth back surgery, asked if he would be ready for the masters. so many tonight rooting for the golfing champion who transcended the sport, who faced personal struggles and took responsibility for them. tonight, in a a