Eldrick Tont " Tiger " Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Currently the World No. 1, he was the highest-paid professional athlete in 2008, having earned an estimated $110 million from winnings and endorsements.
Woods has won fourteen professional major golf championships, the second highest of any male player, and 71 PGA Tour events, third all time. He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour.
Woods has held the number one position in the world rankings for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record ten times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has the record of leading the money list in nine different seasons. He has been named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year a record-tying four times, and is the only person to be named Sports Illustrated' s Sportsman of the Year more than once.
Since his record-breaking win at the 1997 Masters Tournament, golf's increased popularity is attributed to Woods' presence. He is credited for dramatically increasing prize money in golf, generating interest in new audiences as the first non-white person to win the Masters, and for drawing the largest TV audiences in golf history.
Background and family
Early years
Woods was born in Cypress, California to Earl (1932-2006) and Kultida (Tida) Woods (born 1944). He is the only child of their marriage but has two half-brothers, Earl Jr. (born 1955) and Kevin (born 1957), and one half-sister, Royce (born 1958) from the 18-year marriage of Earl Woods and his first wife, Barbara Woods Gray. Earl, a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel and Vietnam War veteran, was of mixed African American (50 percent), Chinese (25 percent) and Native American (25 percent) ancestry. Kultida (née Punsawad), originally from Thailand, is of mixed Thai (50 percent), Chinese (25 percent), and Dutch (25 percent) ancestry. This makes Woods himself one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Thai, one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch. He refers to his ethnic make-up as “Cablinasian” (a syllabic abbreviation he coined from Ca ucasian, Bl ack, (American) In dian, and Asian ).
At birth, Woods was given 'Eldrick' and 'Tont' as first and middle names. His middle name, Tont, is a traditional Thai name. He got his nickname from a Vietnamese soldier friend of his father, Vuong Dang Phong, to whom his father had also given the Tiger nickname. He became generally known by that name and by the time he had achieved national prominence in junior and amateur golf, he was simply known as 'Tiger' Woods.
He grew up in Orange County, California and graduated from Western High School in Anaheim in 1994.
Marriage
In November 2003, Woods became engaged to Elin Nordegren, a Swedish model. They were introduced during The Open Championship in 2001 by Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik, who had employed her as an au pair. They married on October 5, 2004 at the Sandy Lane resort on the Caribbean island of Barbados and live at Isleworth, a community in Windermere, a suburb of Orlando, Florida. They also have homes in Jackson, Wyoming, California, and Sweden. In January 2006, they purchased a $39 million residential property in Jupiter Island, Florida, which they intend to make their primary residence. Their Jupiter Island neighbors will include fellow golfers Gary Player, Greg Norman, and Nick Price, as well as singers Celine Dion and Alan Jackson. In 2007, a guest house owned by Woods on the Jupiter Island estate was destroyed in a fire caused by lightning.
Early in the morning of June 18, 2007, Elin gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, Sam Alexis Woods, in Orlando. The birth occurred just one day after Woods finished tied for second in the 2007 U.S. Open. Tiger chose to name his daughter Sam because his father said that Tiger looked more like a Sam. On September 2, 2008, Woods announced on his website that he and his wife were expecting their second child. Five months later, it was announced that Elin had given birth to a boy named Charlie Axel on February 8, 2009.
Car accident and alleged affairs
On November 27, 2009, Woods had an early morning car accident near his home. Woods was leaving his home around 2:30 a.m. (EST) in his SUV, a 2009 Cadillac Escalade, when he collided with a hedge, a fire hydrant, and finally a tree down the street. The Florida Highway Patrol said that the crash was not alcohol-related, but conducted an investigation. Woods was taken to the hospital but released in good condition after treatment for facial lacerations.
Two days after the accident, Woods issued a statement saying it was his fault, but was a private matter; he also praised his wife Elin for getting him out of the car. Details about what caused the accident were not revealed. The Florida Highway Patrol later ticketed Woods for careless driving, fining him $164. Amid media speculation about the accident, Woods announced that he would not attend his own charity golf tournament, the Chevron World Challenge, or any other tournaments in 2009.
The accident fanned interest in a The National Enquirer story that had been published two days beforehand. The story claimed that Woods had had an affair with nightclub manager Rachel Uchitel, a claim she denied. Woods alluded to the story in his statement about the accident, saying "the many false, unfounded, and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible".
Despite his statement, interest in the story grew until an Us Weekly story in which San Diego cocktail waitress Jaimee Grubbs said that she had a two and a half year affair with Woods and produced voice and text messages that she says Woods left her. According to Grubbs, she first met Woods on April 13, 2007 in Las Vegas, and soon began an affair that ended in October 2009. Life & Style reported that another woman had also been seeing him, though she "neither confirmed nor denied an affair". Woods released an apology on the same day the stories were published, expressing regret for "trangressions" and saying "I have let my family down". Woods was not specific about the reason for the apology, but requested privacy.
Other
Woods is a Buddhist. He has said that his faith was acquired from his mother and that it helps control both his stubbornness and impatience.
When Woods came to Thailand for a tournament in 2000, Thai officials tried to bestow on him royal decorations, and even offered him Thai citizenship, based on his mother being Thai. Woods politely turned them down.
Woods has a niece named Cheyenne Woods who, as of 2009, shows promise as an amateur golfer at Wake Forest University.
Career
Early life and amateur career
Woods was a child prodigy who began to play golf at the age of two. In 1978, he putted against comedian Bob Hope in a television appearance on The Mike Douglas Show . At age three, he shot a 48 over nine holes at the Navy Golf Club in Cypress, California, and at age five, he appeared in Golf Digest and on ABC's That's Incredible . In 1984 at the age of eight, he won the 9–10 boys' event, the youngest age group available, at the Junior World Golf Championships. He went on to win the Junior World Championships six times, including four consecutive wins from 1988 to 1991.
While attending Western High School in Anaheim at the age of 15, Woods became the youngest ever U.S. Junior Amateur Champion, was voted Southern California Amateur Player of the Year for the second consecutive year, and Golf Digest Junior Amateur Player of the Year 1991. He defended his title at the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, becoming the first multiple winner, competed in his first PGA Tour event, the Nissan Los Angeles Open, and was named Golf Digest Amateur Player of the Year, Golf World Player of the Year, and Golfweek National Amateur of the Year in 1992.
The following year, Woods won his third consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, and remains the event's youngest-ever and only multiple winner. In 1994, he became the youngest ever winner of the U.S. Amateur Championship, a record that stood until 2008 when it was broken by Danny Lee. He was a member of the American team at the 1994 Eisenhower Trophy World Amateur Golf Team Championships and 1995 Walker Cup.
Woods enrolled at Stanford University in the fall of 1994, and won his first collegiate event, the 40th Annual William H. Tucker Invitational in September. He declared a major in Economics and was nicknamed "Urkel" by his college teammates. In 1995, he defended his U.S. Amateur title, and was voted Pac-10 Player of the Year, NCAA First Team All-American, and Stanford's Male Freshman of the Year (an award that encompasses all sports). He participated in his first PGA Tour major, the Masters Tournament, and tied for 41st as the only amateur to make the cut. At age 20 in 1996, he became the first golfer to win three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles and won the NCAA individual golf championship. In winning the Silver Medal as
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