Tiger Woods today again backed out of meeting with Florida Highway Patrol over his bizarro SUV smashup early Friday as he released a statement taking responsibility for the accident, and the 911 call from the incident was released.
Spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Montes said Woods’ lawyer, Mark Nejame, told them that the world’s greatest golfer has canceled his third planned interview with cops, which had been scheduled for 3 p.m.
“It has not been rescheduled,” Montes said.
Troopers reportedly approached Woods’ home and met with the golfer’s attorney, who told them Woods was not available to speak with them. Instead the attorney proved the troopers with his driver’s license information, registration and proof of insurance, TMZ.com report. The investigation is ongoing and charges are pending.
TIGER WOODS 911 CALL:
AUDIO | TRANSCRIPT
PHOTOS: SCENE OF TIGER WOODS CRASH
PHOTOS: TIGER WOODS’ ALLEGED MISTRESS
One thing that cops want to know is how both back passenger windows were shattered, Montes said. Neither the front window nor the driver’s side windows were damaged.
Cops said that Tiger’s wife, Elin, busted the car’s windows frantically trying to rescue her hubby after he crashed at the end of their driveway. But celebrity Web site TMZ has reported that Tiger told someone after the crash that his wife started attacking his car with a golf club in a jealous rage amid rumors that he was cheating on her with a beautiful 9/11 widow.
A rattled-sounding Nejame refused to elaborate on his client’s latest actions to The Post.
The lawyer only said that he would talk later about “what, if anything, I’m doing.”
It was the latest twist in an already strange tale of the Tiger.
Earlier, Woods posted a statement on his Web site saying the accident was all his fault. But he didn’t address the string of lingering questions about the accident that sent him to the hospital.
The statement popped up about an hour before the scheduled meeting with the cops at his $2.4 million home inside the gates of Isleworth.
“This situation is my fault, and it’s obviously embarrassing to my family and me,” the statement read.
“I’m human, and I’m not perfect. I will certainly make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Woods said it was a private matter and that he wanted to keep it that way.
“Although I understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible,” he said.
Local police chief Daniel Saylor has said Woods’ wife, Elin, told them she used a golf club to smash out a rear window to help him get out of the SUV when she heard the crash from inside their home at 2:25 a.m. Friday.
“The only person responsible for the accident is me,” Woods insisted in his statement.
“My wife, Elin, acted courageously when she saw I was hurt and in trouble. She was the first person to help me. Any other assertion is absolutely false.”
Yet Elin never even placed a call to cops.
There was one — and only one — 911 call, and that one got made by a neighbor.
“I need an ambulance immediately. I have someone down in front of my house. They hit a pole and I came out to see .¤.¤.” the man told the 911 operator.
“I have a neighbor. He hit the tree … and … I see him laying down.”
Authorities have already said the law doesn’t require Tiger to make a statement about the smashup.
But they were certainly hoping that he would “to give his side to move the investigation forward,” Montes said today.
Montes said police action on such minor crashes routinely is completed in one day.
Woods’ 2009 Cadillac Escalade was towed from the scene of the crash, a crackup estimated to rack up a $5,000 to $8,000 bill, authorities said.
The back window of the car wasn’t broken as previously reported, Montes said.
Rumors were flying about reports that the crash might have been sparked by something far more volatile than a minor accident. Just days earlier, the National Enquirer had revealed an alleged hot affair between Woods and busty New Yorker Rachel Uchitel, whose picture became the public face of grief when her fiance was killed in the 911 terror attacks.
She’s denied the report.
Meanwhile, Woods’s playing status is unknown. He is scheduled to play in the Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, California, this week.
Woods is host of the tournament, which is not part of the U.S. PGA Tour’s regular season and attracts most of golf’s top players. He last played two weeks ago, winning the Australian Masters in his first appearance in that country since 1998.
This season, Woods, 33, won six times in 17 events after undergoing reconstructive surgery on his left knee following his 2008 U.S. Open victory. He also had three runner-up finishes among his 14 top 10s in a year in which he failed to win one of golf’s four major titles for the first time in five years.
Woods led the U.S. Tour with $10.5 million in earnings, and ended the season by capturing the yearlong FedEx Cup title for the second time. The championship included a $10 million bonus.
With that bonus, Woods became the first athlete to surpass the $1 billion mark in career earnings, Forbes magazine reported in October, citing its own calculations of Woods’s golf and endorsement earnings.
Additional reporting by Robert Martinez in Orlando, Fla.