Elin Nordegren Biography

Elin Nordegren (born on January 1, 1980, in Stockholm, Sweden) is a former bikini model, better known as the wife of pro golfer Tiger Woods.

Biography

Nordegren's mother, Barbro Holmberg, is a politician who served as migration and asylum policy minister of Sweden, while her father, Thomas, is a radio journalist who has served as bureau chief in Washington, D.C. for the Swedish Broadcasting media.

Elin Nordegren and her twin sister Josefin had been working as nannies for Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik when he introduced her to Woods during the 2001 British Open. In November 2003, Tiger and Elin Nordegren attended the Presidents Cup tournament in South Africa and became officially engaged when Tiger Woods proposed at the luxury Shamwari Game Reserve. On October 5, 2004, Tiger and Elin were married by the 19th hole of an exclusive golf resort in Barbados. The ceremony reportedly cost over $1.5 million. Privacy was achieved by buying out the island's sole helicopter charter company and by booking the entire hotel - 200 rooms ranging in price from $700 to $8,000 per night.

Shortly after Elin's relationship with Woods became public, nude photographs of a woman resembling Nordegren began circulating on the internet, with text claiming it was she. Nordegren, whose modelling work did include bikini photoshoots, vehemently denies that she has ever posed nude. The photographs claiming to be of her in fact depict Playboy magazine model Kim Hiott, and most are derived from the 2000 edition of Playboy's "Nudes" special edition.

Despite this identification and repeated denials from Elin Nordegren and Woods, in September 2006 (immediately prior to the 2006 Ryder Cup) Irish magazine The Dubliner published an article "Ryder Cup Filth for Ireland", which displayed the nude photographs of Hiott and again claimed they were of Nordegren. Tiger Woods decried the story as "unacceptable" and his agent Mark Steinberg said "Everyone knew it wasn’t her. It's plain as day." Steinberg also said the couple were considering legal recourse against the magazine. The Dubliner issued an apology for the story, saying that they had printed the photos as a "satire of tabloid publishing."