Tiger Woods racked up dozens of victories on the PGA Tour during his professional golf career, but the wins came at a price to his 45-year-old body.
Woods' Hall of Fame career includes 82 PGA Tour wins, including 15 majors. His most recent major win came at the 2019 Masters – two years after his fourth back surgery and eight months after his fifth knee surgery.
Golf commentators attributed many of the injuries to his back and knees to his powerful swing that stressed his joints through decades of golf shots.
His most recent injuries – during a single-car crash Tuesday morning in the Los Angeles area – may be the most daunting of his life. A look at the type of injuries Woods has suffered and how surgeons usually repair them:
How multiple fractures are treated
Tiger Woods sustained comminuted open fractures affecting both the upper and lower portions of his right tibia and fibula, the two main bones in the lower leg.
Anish Mahajan, the chief medical officer and interim CEO at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, said in a statement that Woods had multiple open fractures affecting the upper and lower portions of his right tibia and fibula. The bones were stabilized "by inserting a rod into the tibia," he said.
How bone fractures are repaired
Surgery procedure for intramedullary rod fixation of the right tibia:
Woods also suffered injuries to the bones in his right foot and ankle, which were stabilized using screws and pins, and to muscle and soft tissue in the leg. Mahajan said doctors had to surgically release "the covering of the muscles to relieve pressure due to swelling."
Tiger Woods' previous injuries
A look at career injuries for Tiger Woods: