The Road Home
Absolved of wrongdoing in a fatal crash, Arjun Atwal talks of that 2007 accident and his longing to move forward with his life
The day in late January was not unlike any other for Arjun Atwal. He'd had an afternoon game at Isleworth CC with the club's most famous member, Tiger Woods. At dinner time he threw his clubs in the trunk of his silver BMW M6 and drove out of the club's back gate. Within 10 minutes he would be home with his wife, Sona, and his sons Krishen, 4, and Shiva, 1. As the sun set they would meet him in the driveway with hugs and smiles.
On an evening like that one 22 months earlier Atwal was returning home from Isleworth and looked in his rearview mirror and saw his life change. Less than a mile from his home Atwal and Isleworth member John Noah Park were involved in a crash that killed Park, detoured Atwal's career and nearly destroyed his soul. "It's over now, and I just want to get back to concentrating on my life and my family and trying to be the best golfer I can be," Atwal says in a moment of reflection. "It's not that I will ever forget it, but I have to move on."
Until now, Atwal has not publicly addressed the "five-to-six seconds" that initially caused the Florida Highway Patrol to recommend vehicular homicide charges be brought against him. Although he was cleared last March, he still lives with the innuendo from reports that Park's death was the result of street racing and the perception that this was two members of Isleworth caught up in the moment with their high-performance sedans.
Nearing the two-year anniversary of the incident, Atwal sat down for a series of interviews with Golf World at Isleworth, his home in Windermere, Fla., and later in Del Mar, Calif., to retrace that fateful drive home. He wants closure.
As he told Golf World, "I wish they would stop writing about the accident. The two times I won last year or even after a top-10 they'd be like, 'Oh the golfer accused of this or going to be charged with this or that.' I don't mind talking about it, but I want to talk about it in a positive way, especially now that it's behind me."
It was March 10, 2007, the Saturday evening of the PODS Championship in PGA Tour time, 10 days before Atwal's 34th birthday. It was 5:30 p.m., on a stretch of County Road 535 in Kissimmee, one car in front of the other in the left-hand lane. Atwal, driving the same BMW he has today, was in front of Park, who drove a Mercedes.
"I remember playing here," Atwal says in the men's grille at Isleworth. "There were six of us playing that day, Tiger, Cookie [John Cook], a couple other members, a couple kids. We were having a good time. When we finished playing, I think I practiced, then I left. It was like every day, just driving home, on the same route I take every day. It took five-to-six seconds from the turn I made to that accident for it to happen."
Atwal replays the accident every time he drives home. Sona was home that night, pregnant with Shiva. He is a compassionate man, but he couldn't let the accident destroy him. Guilt was not one of his emotions. It never has been. If he was a victim of anything, it was circumstance. "I don't know [my] exact thoughts," he says during the interview at Isleworth, "It's always a different thought."
Atwal playing the Indian Masters in his homeland in February 2008. Photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
He does remember, quite vividly, what happened.
"I turned left," he says. "It's an empty road so I'm going a little bit faster than the speed limit. The thing is, I never looked at my speedometer. [Atwal told police he was going 85 miles per hour and the Florida Highway Patrol estimates Park was traveling at more than 100 mph when his car left the road.] I looked in the rearview mirror and saw this white Mercedes rapidly closing fast. I know a turn is coming because I drive this road every day. As he's coming up behind me, he moves into the right lane. Within the next two seconds, I saw his car swerve, that's when I hit my brakes. I figured that turn is so severe a car shouldn't be doing what he was doing. The next thing I know, my car is going through a grass median, spinning through oncoming traffic. That was it. That was the five-to-six seconds that I remember."
Born in Asansol, India, Arjun Singh Atwal spent his early years in Calcutta, before being sent to a Christian boarding school in Shimla, a summer vacation destination in the Himalayan foothills. As a Sikh, Atwal learned the principles of yoga he practices today and wore the traditional turban. He started playing golf at 14 when he returned to the city. His father, Bindi, was building a lucrative mining business and had joined Royal Calcutta, one of the oldest golf clubs in the world.
Bindi Atwal wanted his two sons to be educated in America, so he sent them to Long Island. Arjun became a scratch golfer at W. Tresper Clarke High School in Westbury, N.Y., and won his first college match for Nassau Community College at Bethpage State Park. He turned pro in 1995 and focused on the Asian and European tours. In 2002 he won the Caltex Singapore Masters; a year later he won the Asian Order of Merit and finished T-7 in PGA Tour Qualifying School.
