Golf Channel Podcast with Rex & Lav · Golf Channel

A week of extremes: Tiger Woods' new low and Gary Woodland's inspiring comeback

·52 min·4 clips

Tiger Woods was arrested for DUI after a rollover crash near his home, raising questions about his future in golf.

Tiger Woods comes first. The episode opens with the Friday news break: a rollover crash near his home in Jupiter, Florida, no reported injuries, and an arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence. Rex hears a grim echo in it. He calls it deja vu for people around golf and notes that it is being described as Woods' fourth major auto accident. The tone is careful, not lurid. Rex and Lav are not trying to retry every detail from the first report. They are tracking how fast the legal side becomes part of the golf story. Then the show turns hard toward Gary Woodland, and the mood changes. Woodland's win gets treated like the kind of result people may still be talking about when they size up the 2026 golf year. Lavner goes right to the numbers: Woodland wins by five over Nikolaj Hojgaard, shoots all four rounds in the 60s, and closes with a 65-67 weekend. The comeback has feeling, but the golf does the heavy lifting. At 41, Woodland is described as leading the PGA Tour in driving distance and ball speed, with the 196 mile-per-hour ball-speed note landing like a punchline and a warning. Memorial Park fits the story. With little rough and enough room to drive it, the course let Woodland play the aggressive way Randy Smith wanted. The instruction is plain: "stop being soft." That line becomes the hinge. Rex and Lav do not frame the win as a sweet little comeback story. They frame it as a former four-time winner finding the version of himself that can still scare people. The equipment talk earns its space. Woodland went back to his irons, moved into a stiffer shaft, and found a steadier ball flight after a T14 at the Valspar Championship hinted that things were coming around. The putting is just as concrete. Working with Phil Kenyon, he fixed an aim-left, push-it pattern and led the field in putting in Houston. That is what sells the whole thing. Lavner sounds almost surprised that Woodland can carry the speed, the scar tissue, and the polish all at once. The ending loosens up. A listener question jabs Rex about the teleprompter, which sends the conversation through Golf Today, Golf Central, the Augusta National Women's Amateur, and the Valero Texas Open.

As heard by us

A sober Tiger update and an earned Woodland win, handled with restraint and detail.

This episode keeps its focus split between Tiger Woods' rollover crash and Gary Woodland's win, and it does so without turning either one into cheap theater.

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Why you'd press play

You want golf news with the urgency still on it.

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