Tiger Woods Biography

Tiger Woods Biography

Eldrick 'Tiger' Woods (born December 30, 1975), son of Earl and Kultida Woods, is considered one of the greatest golfers of all time.

Biography

As of July 2002, at only 26 years of age, Woods had already won 8 "major" tour events on the PGA Tour. He is one of only five players (along with Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player) in the history of golf to win all four professional major championships in a career. With his victory in The Masters in 2001, he became the only man to have held all four professional majors at once, although this did not occur in a calendar year, and is therefore not recognized by some as a true "Grand Slam". Before joining the PGA Tour, Woods won three consecutive United States Junior Amateur titles, followed by three consecutive United States Amateur titles. With his first US Amateur win in 1994, he became the youngest man ever to win that event. He also won one NCAA individual championship while studying at Stanford University.

Woods' major tournament victories are as follows:

When Tiger Woods burst onto the golf scene, one of the things which made the biggest impact on fans was his long driving. However, he refused to upgrade his technology while other players caught up to him during the 2002-2003 seasons on the PGA Tour. During 2004, Woods finally upgraded his driver technology and, as of 2005, he is back in his place as one of the very longest hitters on the PGA Tour. Despite his length advantage, he has always focused on developing an excellent all-around game. His driving is generally accurate, his approach play accurate, his recovery and bunker play sometimes brilliant, and his putting is usually reliable. He is largely responsible for a shift to higher standards of athleticism amongst professional golfers, and is known for putting in more hours of practice than most.

Early in Tiger Woods's professional career Woods worked with the leading swing coach Butch Harmon, but since he has been coached by the less-heralded Hank Haney. He was involved in a media spat with Harmon, who also works as a golf broadcaster, when Harmon suggested that he was in "denial" about the problems in his game, but they publicly patched up their differences.

Although he is considered charismatic, Woods' approach is essentially cautious. He aims for consistency: although he is better than any other golfer when he is in form, his dominance comes not from having best rounds that are better than the other leading professionals' bests, but from having fewer bad rounds. He plays fewer tournaments than most professionals (twenty or twenty one a year compared to the typical twenty five to thirty), and focuses his efforts on preparing for and competing in the majors and the most prestigious of the other tournaments.

Tiger Woods has an excellent all-around game. He is one of the longer drivers on the tour (12th place in 2003), with a driving distance average of 300.2 so far in 2003. He is also one of the best putters, at 19th place in putts per round so far in 2003. At the 2003 TOUR Championship, he set an all-time record for most consecutive cuts made, with 114. The next player is Ernie Els with 26 consecutive cuts.

Tiger Woods , who has African-American, Asian, Native American, and Caucasian ancestors, is credited with prompting a major surge of interest in the game of golf, especially among minorities and younger people in the United States. His father Earl Woods, an African American, is a Vietnam War veteran and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. His mother Kultida Woods is Asian-American.

Tiger Woods - Background and family

Tiger Woods Biography

Tiger Woods is from a comfortable social background. He was born in Cypress, California. His father, Earl Woods, is a Vietnam War veteran and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, of mixed Black, Chinese and Native American ancestry. He is now the chairman of his son's charitable Tiger Woods Foundation (see section Charity and youth projects below). Woods' mother Kultida Woods is originally from Thailand, and is of mixed Thai, Chinese and Dutch ancestry. This makes Woods himself a quarter Chinese, a quarter Thai, a quarter Black, an eighth Native American and an eighth Dutch. He refers to his ethnic make-up as 'Cablinasian' (a portmanteau of Caucasian, Black, American-Indian, and Asian), a term he made up himself.

Woods' actual given name is 'Eldrick'. He was given the nickname 'Tiger' at birth after a Vietnamese war comrade of his father's and became generally known by that name. By the time he was achieving national prominence in amateur golf, he was always called Tiger Woods.

In 2004, Woods became engaged to Elin Nordegren, a Swedish model. They were introduced by Swedish golf star Jesper Parnevik, who had employed her as a nanny. They married in a sunset ceremony at the Sandy Lane Hotel and Golf Club on Barbados amid armed security before approximately 200 family and friends on October 5, 2004. They currently make their home in Windermere, a suburb of Orlando, Florida.

Tiger Woods has established several charitable and youth projects.

Tiger Woods - Controversy

Early in Woods' career a small number of golf experts expressed concern about his impact on the competitiveness and thus the public appeal of professional golf. This issue was most prominent in around 2001-02 when he was at his most dominant game level. "The question has been asked, seriously, and more than once: Isn't Tiger Woods actually bad for golf?" - commented Bill Lyon of Knight-Ridder, before going on to argue that he wasn't [4]. At first, some feared that Woods could drive all spirit of competition out of the game of golf, by obsolescing existing courses, and having no competitors. However, Woods was unable to keep up the winning streak, and the increases in television ratings and prize money which have occurred since Woods arrived on the golf scene have discredited the negative view of his impact on the game. As of 2005 it is no longer heard. The mainstream view is that Woods' success is one of the most positive things that has ever happened to golf.

Tiger Woods has also been mentioned in relation to certain wider controversies, including the debate about the role of sport in the aspirations of American youth, especially African American youth, which some consider to be unhealthy. Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune decried the "racially charged, money-linked sports obsession" fueled by a "fixation in which the riches and fame of such sports heroes as Michael Jordan have caused a wildly disproportionate number of young black Americans, in particular, to focus on the brass ring of professional sports at the expense of more realistic and productive career paths." Woods dropped out of Stanford after two years to pursue his golf career. Page wrote, "That works out fine for his bank account, but, for too many others it only reinforces the wrongheaded notion that academics should take a back seat to athletics." Others see the inclusion of Woods in this debate as inappropriate, arguing that his main responsibility was to make the right decision for his own career, that he had the backing of his parents, who are certainly not feckless, and that subsequent events suggest he timed his entry to professional golf appropriately. As mentioned above he has funded university scholarships and is founding a learning centre.

Some activists have criticized him on certain social and environmental issues. Some of these criticisms concern golf in general, and the mention of Woods is a device to attract publicity by utilizing the name of a top celebrity. Specific criticisms of things he has done personally have included those of his endorsement of an SUV (the 2002 Buick Rendezvous) deemed second-most-dangerous by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and of mutual funds which do not meet certain activists' ethical investment criteria. The publicity which activists are able to attract for their views about an individual are proportionate to the individual's fame, so it could be considered that this negative publicity says little about Woods' personal ethics relative to those of other golfers, or of members of the general public.



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