Tiger Woods is not only the most successful golfer of all time by continuously holding the No. 1 position on the world rankings, but he is also a billionaire with an estimated fortune of billions of dollars. Born on December 30, 1975 in Cypress, California, Tiger is the only child of Earl and Kultida, although Tiger has two brothers and a half-sister from Tiger’s father’s first marriage. Earl is a retired United States Army officer and Vietnam War veteran.
Earl was born to African American parents and is also believed to have European, Native American, and possibly Chinese ancestry. Wood’s mother Kultida is of Thai descent, where Earl met her while he was on business there in 1968. She is of mixed Thai, Chinese and Dutch ancestry.
In 2002, Tiger stated: “For the record, he is one-quarter Thai, one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Caucasian, one-eighth African American and one-eighth Native American .” Tiger has described his ethnic background as “Cablinasian” (a syllabic acronym he coined for white, black, American Indian and Asian).
Childhood and amateur golf career
Woods grew up in Orange County, California. He was a child prodigy who was introduced to golf by his father before he was two years old. Earl is a single handicap (under 10) amateur golfer, as well as one of the baseball players at Kansas State University. Woods once told reporters that he wanted to be a baseball player like his father but gave up that goal after tearing his wrist. Wood’s father was a member of the military and had golfing privileges at the U.S. Navy golf course next to Joint Forces Training Base Los Alamitos. This has allowed Tiger to play there without thinking about the cost.
In 1978, Woods battled comedian Bob Hope during a television appearance on The Mike Douglas Show. At the age of three, he had a record of 48 strokes over nine holes at the Navy course. At age 5, he appeared in Golf Digest and That’s Incredible! Before turning seven, Woods won the under-10 portion of the Drive, Pitch and Putt competition, held at the Navy Golf Course in Cypress.
In 1984, at the age of eight, he won the men’s 9–10 years event, the youngest age group available, at the World Junior Golf Championship. Wood broke the 80 mark for the first time at the age of 8. He went on to win the world junior championship six times, including four consecutive victories from 1988 to 1991.
Woods’ father Earl wrote that Tiger first beat him at age 11, although Earl tried his best after that. Since then, he has lost to Woods every time. Woods first broke 70 on a regulation golf course at age 12. When Woods was 13, he played in the 1989 Big I, his first major national tournament. In the final round, he was paired with expert John Daly, who was then quite unknown. Daly birdied three of the last four holes to beat him by just one stroke. As a teenager, Woods first met Jack Nicklaus in Los Angeles at the Bel-Air Country Club, when Nicklaus was examining club members. Woods was part of the show and he impressed Nicklaus and the audience with his skills and potential. Earl Woods studied Nicklaus’s career achievements in detail and set his young son the goal of breaking those records.
When Woods was just 15 years old and a student at Western High School in Anaheim, he became the youngest U.S. amateur champion, a record that stood until it was broken by Jim Liu in 2010. He was named the 1991 Southern California Amateur of the Year (for the second year in a row) and the Golf Digest Junior Amateur of the Year. In 1992, he defended his title at the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, becoming the first person to win the tournament twice. He also competed in his first PGA Tour event, the Nissan Los Angeles Open (Woods missed the 36-hole cut) and was named Golf Digest’s Amateur Golfer of the Year, World Golfer of the Year of the year and Golfweek’s National Amateur Golfer of the Year.
The following year, Woods won his third consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur; he remains the only three-time winner of the event. In 1994, at the TPC at Sawgrass in Florida, he became the youngest U.S. Amateur winner, a record he held 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 Championship.
Woods graduated from Western High School at age 18 in 1994 and was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” among graduates. He starred for his high school golf team under coach Don Crosby.
College golf career
Woods is highly sought after by college golf giants. He chose Stanford University, the 1994 NCAA champion. He enrolled at Stanford in the fall of 1994 on a full scholarship through golf and won his first college event, the William H. The 40th annual Tucker Invitational, that September. He chose to major in economics and was nicknamed “Urkel” by college teammate Notah Begay III. In 1995, he successfully defended his U.S. Amateur title at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island and was voted Pac-10 Player of the Year.
At age 19, Woods entered his first professional PGA Tour event, the 1995 Masters, and finished 41st as the only amateur to qualify; two years later, he won the tournament by 12 strokes. At age 20 in 1996, he became the first golfer to win three consecutive US Amateur titles and won the NCAA individual golf championship. He left college after two years to turn professional golf. In 1996, Woods moved out of California in 2013 saying it was because of the state’s high taxes on sports prizes.
Professional career
Woods turned professional at the age of 20 in August 1996 and immediately signed an advertising contract with Nike, Inc. and Titleist, which ranked as the most lucrative endorsement deal in golf history at the time. Woods was named Sports Illustrated’s 1996 Sportsman of the Year and PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. On April 13, 1997, he won his first professional tournament, the Masters, in a record-breaking fashion and became the youngest tournament winner at age 21. Two months later, he set record for fastest rise to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
After a lackluster 1998, Woods ended the 1999 season with eight wins, including the PGA Championship, a feat not achieved since Johnny Miller did it in 1974.
Woods is severely nearsighted. To correct this problem, he underwent successful laser eye surgery in 1999 and he immediately resumed winning tournaments. In 2007, Woods’ eyesight began to deteriorate again and he had to have laser eye surgery a second time. In 2000, Woods won six consecutive events on the PGA Tour, the longest winning streak since Ben Hogan did it in 1948. One of those was the US Open, where he broke or tied nine tournament records. tournament, and Sports Illustrated called it “the greatest performance in golf history,” in which Woods won the tournament by a record 15 strokes and earned a check for $800,000.
By the end of 2000, Woods had won 9 of the 20 PGA Tour events he participated in and broke the record for the lowest scoring average in tournament history. He was named Sportsman of the Year, the only athlete to be honored twice, and was ranked by Golf Digest magazine as the 12th best golfer of all time.
However, Woods rebounded in 2005, winning six PGA Tour events and regaining the top spot in July after switching places with Singh in the first half of the year. Woods began to dominate in 2006, winning the first two PGA events but failing to win his fifth Masters in April. After his father’s death in May, Woods took some time off from playing and appeared tired as he returned to the US Open at Winged Foot Golf Club, where he missed the cut. However, he quickly returned to form and ended the year by winning six tournaments in a row. At the end of the season, Woods had a total of 54 wins including 12 majors; he broke the league record for both total wins and total wins in the majors in 11 seasons.
Woods continued to play excellently in 2007 and the first part of 2008. In April 2008, he had knee surgery and missed the next two months on tour. Woods returned for the 2008 US Open, where he struggled on the first day but eventually won a dramatic upset victory over Rocco Mediate after an 18-hole playoff, after which Mediate said: “This guy does Things you shouldn’t do.” Two days later, Woods announced that he would miss the remainder of the season due to further knee surgery and that his knee was more severely damaged than previously revealed, causing his performance at the U.S. His Open was even more praised.
Woods called it “my greatest championship ever.” With Woods absent, television ratings for the remainder of the season dropped sharply compared to 2007.
Torturous trauma
Although golf is a game for the upper class, to assert their achievements, golfers must practice very harshly. Therefore, injuries are a constant threat to top golfers. Woods made his much-anticipated return to golf in 2009, when he performed very well. His comeback included a spectacular performance at the 2009 Presidents Cup, but he failed to win a major title, his first since 2004, after his marital infidelity was exposed. ceiling and receiving widespread media attention in late 2009, Woods announced in December that he would retire from competitive golf indefinitely. In February 2010, he made a televised apology for his behavior, saying “I was wrong and I was stupid.” During this time, several companies terminated their contracts with Woods. Woods’ career fell into a dark period.
Woods returned to competition in April 2010 at the 2010 Masters, where he finished in fourth place. He followed the Masters with poor performances at the Quail Hollow Championship and the Players Championship, where he withdrew in the fourth round due to injury. Soon after, Hank Haney, Woods’ coach since 2003, resigned. In August 2010, Woods hired Sean Foley as Haney’s replacement. The rest of the season went poorly for Woods, who failed to win a tournament for the first time since turning professional, but still finished the season ranked No. 2 in the world.
In 2011, Woods’ form continued to decline; this affected Woods’ ranking. After dropping to No. 7 in March 2011, he returned to No. 5 with a strong showing at the 2011 Masters, where he finished fourth.
Due to a foot injury at the Masters, Woods missed several summer tournaments on the PGA Tour. In July 2011, Woods fired his longtime caddy Steve Williams and temporarily replaced him with friend Bryon Bell until Woods hired Joe LaCava. After returning to tournament play in August, Woods continued to decline and his ranking gradually dropped to No. 58. Woods rose to No. 50 in mid-November after a third-place finish at the tournament. Emirates Australian Open and broke his winless streak by winning the Chevron World Challenge in December 2011.
Woods began his 2012 season with two tournaments: the HSBC Abu Dhabi Golf Championship and the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where he started well but struggled in the final rounds. Following the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, where he was eliminated in the second round, Woods returned and finished second at The Honda Classic, with the lowest final-round score of his PGA Tour career.
After a brief layoff due to another leg injury, Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational, his first victory on the PGA Tour since the BMW Championship in September 2009. After several poor performances, Woods claimed his 73rd PGA Tour victory at the Memorial Tournament in June, tying Jack Nicklaus for second place with most PGA Tour wins; A month later, Woods surpassed Nicklaus with a win at AT&T National, trailing only Sam Snead, who had amassed 82 wins on the PGA tour.
2013 marked the return of Woods’ dominant play. In January, he won the Farmers Insurance Open by four rounds for his 75th PGA Tour victory. This was his seventh win in the event. In March 2013, Woods won the WGC-Cadillac Championship, also for the seventh time, giving him his 17th WGC title and first since 2009. Two weeks later, Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational, winning the title. Winning the event for a record-tying eighth victory put him back at the top of the world rankings.
Age, injuries and problems with his personal life seemed like insurmountable obstacles that forced Tiger Woods to say goodbye to top golf, but they didn’t. On April 14, 2019, Woods returned and won the Masters, his first major championship in 11 years and his 15th major championship overall. Woods finished with 13 under for a one-stroke victory over Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele and Brooks Koepka. At age 43, he became the second oldest golfer to win the Masters, after Jack Nicklaus, who was 46 when he won in 1986.
Thanks to his contributions to sports, in May 2019 Woods received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Donald Trump. As of 2017, Woods is considered the highest paid golfer in the world. In 2022, Woods is the first golfer with a net worth of more than $1 billion. For a person of color, playing golf intelligently is also a way to assert one’s position.
