World number one golfer Tiger Woods was just two when he first picked up a golf club, an instrument that would bring him fame and a £300m fortune.

But it was the use to which his wife Elin Nordegren put a golf club that is the most talked-about aspect of a crash outside their waterside mansion in Orlando, Florida.

Exactly what happened in the early hours of Friday morning has now made their marriage the focus of thousands of unwelcome stories around the world.

The 33-year-old sporting superstar was at the wheel of his Cadillac Escalade at 2.25am outside his home in the exclusive gated community of Isleworth when he hit a fire hydrant and a tree. His wife reportedly ran to the car and used a golf club to smash open a back window to release her stricken husband.

But a strongly denied alternative version suggested she was brandishing a golf club in anger and used the club to work out that ire on the Cadillac following a row over tabloid reports linking her husband of five years to nightclub hostess 34-year-old Rachel Uchitel.

However, in a statement yesterday afternoon, Woods said the accident was his fault but dismissed the infidelity rumours. “Although I understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious rumours that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible.

“The only person responsible for the accident is me. My wife Elin acted courageously when she saw I was hurt and in trouble. She was the first person to help me. Any other assertion is absolutely false.”

Tiger lay on the ground unconscious for around five minutes before coming round on the ground outside his home. He had cuts to his lips and was bleeding. According to Daniel Saylor, police chief for Windermere near Orlando, Woods was muttering incoherently and his wife was “frantic and upset”. The couple, who have two children, Sam Alexis (2) and nine-month-old Charlie Axel, were to be questioned yesterday.

Uchitel has strenuously denied any liaison with Woods, and told a journalist: “I am really upset about it because I am being portrayed as a home-wrecker, when it simply isn’t true.”

Woods’s 13-year-career has been scandal-free. Swedish-born former model Elin is portrayed as a saintly and supportive sporting spouse, attending every major tournament her husband has played in — though she was not at recent events in Melbourne and Shanghai.

Elin won a libel action against The Dubliner Magazine after it printed already discredited nude pictures of a Playboy model in the run-up to the Ryder Cup in the K-Club in Co Kildare in 2006 and claimed they were of Nordegren.

Woods’s glittering career, winning 14 major golf championships in 13 years, made him a prime and willing target for labels eager for a superstar with an unimpeachable clean-cut image to sell their goods.

But some golf commentators — and even worse, some of his fans — have identified a slippage in Woods’ halo. He hurled his club away after missing a shot, narrowly missing spectators and alienating fans at the Australian Masters. When he missed a drive at Turnberry in Scotland, an F-word expletive could be heard from afar,

Expectations of Woods have always been high. His father Earl, who died in 2006, predicted his son — named after a Vietnamese soldier Earl had fought with — “will do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity”.

Most of all, Woods will be wishing he could change the course his Cadillac took on Friday night.