WOODS, Eldrick ("Tiger")

(b. 30 December 1975 in Cypress, California), golfer who dominated the world golf circuit as soon as he turned professional.

Woods's father, Earl Woods, is a former career soldier who served two tours in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, where he met Kultilda Punsawad. They were married in New York City in 1969 and moved to California in 1975 where Woods was born. Earl called his son "Tiger" after his friend Nguyen Phong, a South Vietnamese soldier whose bravery had earned him that name.

Having learned to play golf late in life, Earl Woods was obsessed with practicing. He frequently hit balls into a net in his garage while his son watched from his high chair. When Woods was old enough to walk, he began to swing a sawed-off golf club with remarkable effect and was soon putting with uncanny accuracy. Encouraged to develop his talent, Woods grew up with a clear goal—he would become the greatest golfer in history. Steadied by his mother's emphasis on education and spirituality, Woods worked hard under his father's tutelage, while the family spared no expense for coaches, trainers, and even sports psychologists to hone his skills.

Woods first entered the record books as an amateur. He is the only golfer to have won three consecutive Junior Amateur Championships (1991, 1992, 1993) followed by three consecutive U.S. Amateur victories (1994, 1995, 1996). Woods was a good student at Western High School in Anaheim, from which he graduated in 1994, and won a full scholarship to Stanford University. But in 1996, after completing his sophomore year, he left the university to turn professional. He earned two victories and three top tens in the eight tournaments he played during the remainder of that year, and was awarded the Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour Rookie of the Year and the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year Award. He prepared intensely for the 1997 season, which was among the most dramatic first full seasons in the history of sports. He won the year's first major, the 1997 Masters, by a record-shattering twelve strokes and finished with a record-breaking 270. By the end of the season, Woods had garnered five additional wins, prize money totaling over $2 million, the PGA money title (for the most money won in tournaments), and the Player of the Year Award.

However, in 1998 Woods failed to live up to the extraordinary expectations that his earlier performance had created. In defense of his Master's title, he lost by six strokes, and won just one PGA Tour for the season. Guided by Coach Butch Harmon, he began rebuilding his swing, seeking efficiency and simplicity. He began a vigorous aerobic and weight training regime that added 20 pounds of muscle to his six-foot, two-inch, 160-pound body. In 1999 Woods's winning ways returned; he won eight PGA events, the most victories in a season since Johnny Miller's eight in 1974.

Woods's 2000 season was nothing less than phenomenal. He won nine events (the most since Sam Snead's eleven in 1950). He won the three remaining majors—the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship—equaling Ben Hogan's one-year, three-slam record. At twenty-four Woods was the youngest player to complete golf's professional Grand Slam, beating his only record-book rival, Jack Nicklaus, who had achieved that remarkable goal at twenty-six. Woods's victory at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach was another performance that distanced him from his competitors. He won by fifteen, a rout reminiscent of his performance at the 1997 Masters. His season-scoring average was 68.17 (surpassing Byron Nelson's 68.33, set in 1945), his adjusted average was 67.79 (which give him the Vardon Trophy), and his earnings totaled a remarkable $9,188,321 (about double those of runner-up Phil Mickelson). Woods was first in greens in regulation (75.2 percent), first in consecutive cuts made (he had 59, the runner-up 18), and he finished in the top ten in 17 of 20 tournaments entered. "Tiger has raised the bar to a level that only he can jump over," golfing great Tom Watson observed.

By September 2001 Woods had won 29 times (about 30 percent of his matches) as a PGA professional. His game consists of the best qualities found in the games of his most distinguished predecessors. He has Hogan's work ethic, Nicklaus's concentration, Snead's grace, Palmer's daring, Nelson's ball control, and Jones's charisma. "If you were building the complete golfer," friend Mark O'Meara said, "you would build Tiger Woods."

Woods's long drives, his precise short game, and his remarkable putting, combined with his charisma, have dramatically increased golf's popularity. "The growth of golf is primarily due to Tiger Woods," former PGA official David Eger noted. "He is probably responsible for sixty cents of every dollar being played for on the men's tour today. Any time he plays in a tournament the television ratings skyrocket."

Golf in the post–World War II period has undergone a series of revolutions. Hogan changed how golfers practiced, Palmer changed how golfers were perceived, Nicklaus changed how golf was played, and now Woods is changing all of those things again. "Never before has one player affected so many people from so many walks of life," said Curtis Strange, two-time U.S. Open champion and American Broadcasting Companies (ABC) commentator. "People who never watched golf before are glued to the television set when Tiger is on."

But Woods's popularity has had a ripple effect beyond the world of professional golf. The enormous media attention he has received, his mixed heritage (his father is one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Native American, and half African American; his mother is half Thai, one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Caucasian), and Nike's effective "I am Tiger Woods" advertisements have made golf hip in the inner city. As PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem noted, "Tiger's impetus to all of golf and certainly to inner-city interest in golf was enormous, especially in the public sector." There Tiger is not compared to Ben Hogan or Jack Nicklaus, but with another (amateur) golfer, a sports icon named Michael Jordan.

A biography of Woods is David Owen, The Chosen One: Tiger Woods and the Dilemma of Greatness (2001). In Woods's own Tiger Woods, How I Play Golf (2001), he reveals the five secrets to his amazing success.

Martin Sherwin