Tiger Woods is 'awake, responsive and recovering in his hospital room' after extensive surgery on Tuesday to his lower right leg and ankle, following a crash in California that police said he was lucky to survive. 

Woods, 45, was put under general anesthetic at Harbor-UCLA hospital as surgeons fitted metal rods, screws and pins to his shattered right shinbone and calf bone following the crash, which happened around 7.15am Tuesday in south Los Angeles. 

Anish Mahajan, chief medical officer at the hospital, said Woods suffered comminuted open fractures of his tibia and fibula - where the bone splinters into two or more pieces and comes through the skin - and had a rod inserted in his tibia, with his foot and ankle 'stabilized with a combination of screws and pins'.