Tiger Woods
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BIOGRAPHY
- GALLERY
He has mauled key golfing records, strikes fear into the hearts of fellow competitors and is the first ever professional golfer to hold all four major championships at the same time. In short, Tiger Woods is the best golfer the world has ever seen. He is also on target to become the first billionaire athlete in history.
By the age of 26 he had won an astounding nine major championships and in 2000 alone he raked in ₤12 million in prize money. A series of lucrative sponsorship deals, including a contract to promote Disney amusement parks worth £45 million a year, have placed him at the forefront of sport's big money earners.
Born in 1975 in California, Eldrick "Tiger" Woods - he is named after a Vietnamese soldier friend of his father - made his golfing debut at very early age, putting against Bob Hope on a TV show when he was only two. "My love affair with golf began before I could even walk or talk," says the sporting star.
"Pop" Earl Woods, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel, ruled over his son's career with military precision. Tiger took every junior title going in America and turned professional in 1996 after dropping out of Stanford University. In 1997 he became a phenomenon when he dominated the Masters in a way that no rookie had any right to do. But deciding there were still flaws in his game, he tore it down and started over.
The influence of Woods senior also made itself felt on the young golfer's personal life. A three-year love affair with high-school sweetheart Dina Gravell hit the rocks in 1997 amidst claims of "gold digging" on the part of Tiger's father. The combined pressure of both father and career precluded any subsequent romance, although Tiger went on to distance himself from his parents and find a steady companion in 22-year-old law student Joanna Jagoda, who he met on a blind date. However, the couple quietly split in early 2001.
On October 5, 2004, Tiger wed Elin Nordegren at the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados after a three-year courtship. A former psychology student and nanny to the family of pro golfer Jesper Parnevik, Elin had met Tiger at the Williams World Challenge in 2001. The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Sam Alexis, on June 18, 2007.
The birth of his first child, he says, helped him get over the death of his father, who passed away the previous summer. As the loss and the pain began to subside, he began to recover his form after a while off the winners' podium, winning seven consecutive events by January 2007.
In the predominantly white, elitist sport of golf, Tiger's exotic racial origins - his father was African American, his mother Kultida is Thai - have often been a cause for comment. But the young golfer has coped admirably with the jibes, saying proudly: "I am the product of two great cultures - one African-American and the other Asian."
Once known for his arrogant bad temper and tendency to toss his clubs around when he missed an easy shot - he even sought advice from Jack Nicklaus on how to contain his aggression - Tiger has matured into a golfer of the sort of stupendous talent unlikely to be duplicated again in our lifetime. Describing Tiger's achievements as "so hard it's like trying to climb Everest in flip flops," America's most celebrated sportswriter Rick Reilly, says: "We are lucky. We're alive when the single most dominating athlete in 70 years is at his jaw-dropping best."
Born in 1975 in California, Eldrick "Tiger" Woods - he is named after a Vietnamese soldier friend of his father - made his golfing debut at very early age, putting against Bob Hope on a TV show when he was only two. "My love affair with golf began before I could even walk or talk," says the sporting star.
"Pop" Earl Woods, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel, ruled over his son's career with military precision. Tiger took every junior title going in America and turned professional in 1996 after dropping out of Stanford University. In 1997 he became a phenomenon when he dominated the Masters in a way that no rookie had any right to do. But deciding there were still flaws in his game, he tore it down and started over.
The influence of Woods senior also made itself felt on the young golfer's personal life. A three-year love affair with high-school sweetheart Dina Gravell hit the rocks in 1997 amidst claims of "gold digging" on the part of Tiger's father. The combined pressure of both father and career precluded any subsequent romance, although Tiger went on to distance himself from his parents and find a steady companion in 22-year-old law student Joanna Jagoda, who he met on a blind date. However, the couple quietly split in early 2001.
On October 5, 2004, Tiger wed Elin Nordegren at the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados after a three-year courtship. A former psychology student and nanny to the family of pro golfer Jesper Parnevik, Elin had met Tiger at the Williams World Challenge in 2001. The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Sam Alexis, on June 18, 2007.
The birth of his first child, he says, helped him get over the death of his father, who passed away the previous summer. As the loss and the pain began to subside, he began to recover his form after a while off the winners' podium, winning seven consecutive events by January 2007.
In the predominantly white, elitist sport of golf, Tiger's exotic racial origins - his father was African American, his mother Kultida is Thai - have often been a cause for comment. But the young golfer has coped admirably with the jibes, saying proudly: "I am the product of two great cultures - one African-American and the other Asian."
Once known for his arrogant bad temper and tendency to toss his clubs around when he missed an easy shot - he even sought advice from Jack Nicklaus on how to contain his aggression - Tiger has matured into a golfer of the sort of stupendous talent unlikely to be duplicated again in our lifetime. Describing Tiger's achievements as "so hard it's like trying to climb Everest in flip flops," America's most celebrated sportswriter Rick Reilly, says: "We are lucky. We're alive when the single most dominating athlete in 70 years is at his jaw-dropping best."
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