Tiger Woods Hurt in Late-Night Car Crash Outside His Home

T iger Woods isn’t the only one in the family who can swing a club with authority.

The legendary golfer’s wife, Elin Nordegren, used one of her husband’s irons to bust a back window in his 2009 Cadillac SUV yesterday and drag the PGA tour star to safety after Woods crashed next to his home.

"We appreciate very much everyone’s thoughts and well wishes," Woods, 33, wrote on his Web site after announcing he had been treated and released from a Florida hospital. He suffered facial lacerations.

The gossip site TMZ.com reported last night that Woods and his wife got into a marital spat that sent Tiger tearing out of the driveway in Windermere, Fla., slamming into a hydrant and tree at about 2:25 a.m.

Florida police called it "a domestic issue," TMZ reported, and Windermere police Chief Daniel Saylor credited Nordegren with recovering quickly and smashing out the back window of Tiger’s car to help him crawl out.

The couple lives in a $2.4 million mansion in a gated community near Orlando. The hydrant he hit was on a neighbor’s property, police said, Boston Herald informs.

Windermere police chief Daniel Saylor said his two officers found the 33-year-old Woods lying in the street with his wife, Elin, hovering over him.

"She was frantic, upset," Saylor said in a briefing Friday night. "It was her husband laying on the ground."

Saylor said Woods' wife told officers she was in the house when she heard the accident and "broke the back window with a golf club." He said the front-door windows were not broken and that "the door was probably locked."

"She supposedly got him out and laid him on the ground," he said. "He was in and out of consciousness when my guys got there."

Saylor said Woods had lacerations to his upper and lower lips, and blood in his mouth; officers treated Woods for about 10 minutes until an ambulance arrived. Woods was conscious enough to speak, though the police chief said Woods didn't say anything coherent.

Woods has won 82 times around the world and 14 majors, becoming the first player of black heritage to win a major at the 1997 Masters when he was 21. He attended the Stanford-Cal football game last Saturday, where he tossed the coin at the start of the game and was inducted into Stanford's sports Hall of Fame at halftime, The Associated Press reports.