Tiger Woods Is 'Suffering' and Needs Help, Not Ridicule, After DUI Arrest

It's hard to look at that mug shot taken in the small hours of Monday morning in Jupiter, Florida.

Tiger Woods appears dazed, haggard, so utterly lost—a still life of suffering. His eyes are at half-staff, empty, devoid of…anything.

But let's not make this high-profile fall—Tiger's second—into a punch line. Let's realize this is a 41-year-old man who is undergoing something traumatic in his life. Let's remember he has two kids who need their daddy.

"People need to understand that athletes have the same problems the rest of us do, and they struggle just like everyone else," says Brett McCabe, a sports psychologist who works with several PGA players. "Tiger is suffering right now. We still need to hear all the facts, but he needs support, and I'm sure the golf community will give it to him."

"I feel bad for him," Jack Nicklaus said at a press conference Tuesday in Dublin, Ohio. "Tiger's a friend. He's been great for the game of golf. He needs our help."

Here's what we know: At about 2 a.m. Monday, a police officer found Woods asleep behind the wheel of his black 2015 Mercedes AMG S65 on the side of the road, according to police documents. The brake lights and right blinker were on. The front and rear left-side tires were flat, and the passenger-side taillight was out. The rear bumper was scraped. Woods was alone, and his seatbelt was fastened.

After waking Woods, the officer noted that his speech was "extremely slow and slurred." At one point Woods confessed he didn't know where he was. Woods then failed several field sobriety tests. He passed a breathalyzer test—he scored a .000—and later admitted in a statement that he had "an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications." He told officers he had taken three different medications, including the powerful painkiller Vicodin. He was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. He's scheduled to appear in court July 5.

Woods has been in grave pain in recent months, the result of the breakdown of his body. In April he underwent his fourth back surgery. He tried to make a comeback earlier this year after missing 15 months with back problems, but in February he was forced to withdraw from his third event, the Dubai Desert Classic, because the pain had become intolerable. Woods explained in his blog it hurt just to lie down.

Woods' staggering fall from grace is still hard to fathom. It began in November 2009 when the National Enquirer reported Woods had an affair—the first of many allegations of marital infidelity. Shortly afterward, he drove his car into a fire hydrant and tree in his driveway at his home in Orlando, Florida. His wife, Elin Nordegren, used a golf club to smash the window of Woods' car. He eventually checked into a sex addiction clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He and his wife divorced.

(Getty Images)

Now this most recent image—the mug shot—underscores how far removed Woods is from his prime, when he won 14 majors and was considered by many to be a virtual lock to pass Nicklaus' record of 18. Woods was perhaps the most riveting athlete of his generation, commanding our attention with his on-course brilliance, his shotmaking, his creative, fertile mind, and his ability to make putts when it mattered most. With Woods, you believed anything was possible on a golf course.

But the former No. 1 player in the world is ranked 876th and hasn't won a major in nine years. Now his frailties have been exposed again and make us think about our own.

Can we be better spouses, better parents, better friends?

The answer to all those questions is yes. We all have work to do; it's just that some of us have to do that work in a very public way.