In the final part of HBO’s ‘Tiger,’ the golfer’s former mistress remembers what his wife Elin Nordegren told her on the phone after discovering their affair.
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Rachel Uchitel has finally revealed what happened on the night that shocked the sporting world in the second and final part of HBO’s Tiger docuseries. In the Jan. 17 episode, Tiger Woods’ 45-year-old former mistress described what happened on Thanksgiving night 2009 when the golfer’s then wife, Elin Nordegren, discovered that the tabloid rumor about their affair was true.
Rachel admitted that, just days before, she and her lover “did everything to try and stop” a National Enquirer story exposing their secret romance. One of the tabloid’s reporters had spotted her going to visit Tiger’s room in a Melbourne hotel during the Australian Masters and – despite the couple’s best efforts – the magazine insisted on publishing the article.
At the time the secretly philandering golfer had a golden boy image. The father-of-two conspired with his mistress to convince Elin that there was no truth to the story. He even put the two women on the phone with each other, according to the documentary.
“We had an extensive, 30-minute conversation, Elin and I, convincing her that I was not having a sexual relationship with Tiger,” Rachel said. “We talked about how I knew Tiger, how I knew his friends, how and why I was in Australia.”
Elin appeared to believe Rachel and Tiger and, two days later, Rachel said she and the golfer wished each other a Happy Thanksgiving, relieved that they had gotten away with it.
“Between this stupid story and the phone call with Elin I remember thinking, oh my God, we’re going to slide right over this,” she said. “Two days later it was Thanksgiving. Tiger and I texted throughout the day, saying that we had a lot to be grateful for. We had gotten away unscathed in what could have been a complete nightmare.”
In fact, that night Rachel said Tiger sent her a text message saying, “You were the only one I ever loved.” “I remember just feeling that things had never been better between us and then he told me that he was taking an Ambien and going to sleep,” she said.
But then the night took a dramatic turn. “When I got another text from him, I was kind of surprised,” she said. “What came through was something like, ‘When am I gonna see you again?’ And then the phone rang. I answered saying something like, ‘Hey babe, I thought you went to sleep.’ And, instead of Tiger’s voice, it was Elin. And she said, ‘I knew it was you.’”
That night would become infamous after Tiger crashed his car into a fire hydrant near his Florida home and reports swirled that a marital bust-up had been the cause, with Elin using a golf club to smash his car window.
Tiger’s life spiraled out of control. He went into rehab for sex addiction, divorced Elin and became the butt of talk show comedians after numerous women came out of the woodwork, alleging they were his mistress too.
Rachel, who maintained her silence for more than a decade until this HBO documentary, was targeted by the paparazzi. “This story was so huge, this was the end of my life as I knew it,” she said. The two-part documentary, Tiger, is available on HBO and on the streaming service, HBO Max.