Tiger Woods was caught on camera driving calmly up a California hill just minutes before his near-deadly crash.
Footage obtained by TMZ shows Woods driving a Genesis GV80 SUV — a courtesy car from the Genesis Invitational golf tournament — behind a minivan along the otherwise empty hill on Rancho Palos Verdes.
The clip was filmed at 7:05 a.m. on Hawthorne Boulevard, the same road that the gold legend crashed off of seven minutes and five miles later, TMZ said.
It was not immediately clear if the minivan was with Woods, who was alone in the Genesis. Sources had told TMZ that he had been waiting for members of his entourage before leaving his resort that morning.
However, the footage appeared to show Woods going at a gentle pace at that part of his journey.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva said that Woods was going at a “relatively greater speed than normal” and that it would likely be connected to the crash.
However, he conceded that it could be connected to the sudden descent at the spot that Villanueva and locals say “has a high frequency of accidents.”