updated 5:51 p.m. ET Jan. 31, 2005

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Tiger Woods’ caddie was released from a hospital Sunday after having surgery on his left hand.

Steve Williams gashed his hand to the bone Friday in an auto race when his modified saloon car flipped and hit a safety wall on the last lap of a dirt-track event at the Baypark Speedway in Tauranga.

Television footage of the crash showed Williams’ car touched another while leading narrowly on the last bend of the race, slid sideways then rolled several times before striking the track’s outer fence. The car was extensively damaged and track officials said Williams was lucky to avoid more serious injury.

Williams, recovering at home Sunday, said he did not know when he would be able to carry Woods’ bag again.

“My hand’s going to take a couple of months to heal properly, apparently,” he said.

Williams called Woods at his Orlando, Fla., home Friday to tell him about the accident.

“When I called him he said, ‘You sound a bit groggy,”’ Williams said. “I said, ‘That’s because I’m lying in a hospital bed.’ “He said, ‘Don’t tell me you had a wreck.”’

Williams, who is left-handed, said Woods offered to send his private plane to New Zealand to pick him up.

Woods, the Buick Invitational winner last week, will return to play Feb. 17 in the Nissan Open at Riviera in Los Angeles.

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