Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods, born December 30, 1975, is a professional golfer from the United States.
He is tied for #1 on the PGA Tour in wins, second in men’s major championships, and holds a number of golf records.
Woods is widely recognized as one of the greatest golfers of all time, as well as one of modern history’s most famous athletes.
He is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Early life and Education
Woods was born on December 30, 1975, in Cypress, California, to Earl and Kultida “Tida” Woods.
He is the only child of an African American Army officer father and a Thai mother, though he has two half-brothers and a half-sister from his father’s first marriage.
When Woods was a child, his father began calling him “Tiger” in honor of a fellow soldier and friend with the same moniker.
Woods began playing golf as a child. Earl, his father, was his teacher and mentor. Woods had become an expert at the game by the age of eight.
Woods graduated from Western High School in 1994 at the age of 18 and was named “Most Likely to Succeed” in his class.
Read Also: The Biography of John Cena: Early life and education, age, career & personal life
Career
In the fall of 1994, he enrolled at Stanford on a golf scholarship and won his first collegiate event, the 40th Annual William H. Tucker Invitational, in September.
After an impressive junior, college, and amateur golf career, Woods went professional in 1996 at the age of 20.
By the end of April 1997, he had won three PGA Tour events in addition to his first major, the 1997 Masters, which he won by 12 shots in a record-breaking performance.
In June 1997, little than a year after going pro, he was ranked number one in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time.
Woods dominated golf for the first decade of the twenty-first century.
From August 1999 to September 2004 (264 consecutive weeks), then again from June 2005 to October 2010, he was the world’s number one golfer (281 consecutive weeks).
Woods holds a number of golf records.
He has held the world number-one ranking for the most consecutive weeks and the most total weeks of any golfer in history.
He has won the PGA Player of the Year title 11 times. Woods has the most career major championships and PGA Tour victories of any active golfer.
He is also the second golfer (after Jack Nicklaus) to complete the career Grand Slam three times.
Woods has won 18 World Golf Championships.
Personal Life
Woods married Elin Nordegren, the daughter of former migration minister Barbro Holmberg and radio journalist Thomas Nordegren, in November 2003.
They married on October 5, 2004, at the Sandy Lane resort in Barbados, and lived in Isleworth, a community in Windermere, a suburb of Orlando, Florida.
They bought a $39 million estate on Jupiter Island, Florida, in 2006 and began building a 10,000-square-foot home; Woods moved there in 2010 following the couple’s divorce.
Sam Alexis Woods, Woods, and Nordegren’s first child, was born in 2007. Woods chose the name because his father had always called him Sam.
Their son, Charlie Axel Woods, was born in 2009.
Woods and Nordegren divorced on August 23, 2010, after six years of marriage.
Woods disclosed his relationship with Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn on March 18, 2013. They divorced in May 2015.
Woods was alleged to be in a relationship with stylist Kristin Smith from November 2016 to August 2017.
He’s been dating restaurant manager Erica Herman since late 2017.
