Golf’s Greatest Player: Tiger Woods

Woods is the winner of 14 professional major golf championships. He has the most career major wins and career PGA tour wins of any professional golfer and he is also the youngest player to win the Grand Slam, an unofficial concept that refers to winning all four of golf’s major championships in one calendar year.

Woods was born in California in 1975 to Earl and Kultida Woods. Earl Woods was a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel of African American, Chinese and Native American ancestry. Kultida’s ancestry is also diverse and includes Thai, Chinese and Dutch. Woods refers famously to his ethnicity as “cablinasian,” a term he coined that refers to Caucasian, Black, American Indian and Asian.

Tiger Woods began playing golf at age two and is generally considered to be a child prodigy. In 1978 at age three he famously putted against legendary comedian Bob Hope on the popular television show The Mike Douglas Show. At age five he appeared in Golf Digest and by the ripe age of eight won the Junior World Golf Championship, which he would go on to win six times.

In 1992 Golf Digest named Woods “Golf Digest Amateur Player of the Year” and was also named “Golf World Player of the Year” and “Golfweek national Amateur of the Year.” The next year he became and remains the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship youngest-ever multiple winning player.

Woods continued to play golf while attending Stanford University. He participated in his first PGA tour major, the Masters Tournament. In this tournament he tied for 41st and was the only amateur to make the cut. After winning three consecutive U.S. amateur titles and the NCAA individual golf championship Woods left college after two years and turned professional in 1996.

In 1996 on the heels of winning two golfing events and qualifying for the Tour Championship, Sports Illustrated magazine named Woods the “Sportsman of the Year” and the PGA Rookie of the Year.” The next year Woods won his first major tournament, The Masters, by a record margin of 12 strokes. He became the youngest Masters winner and the first African-American and Asian-American player to win. The same year Woods won another three PGA tour events and became ranked as the number one golfer in the Official World Golf Rankings.

In 2000 at the age of 24 Woods became the youngest golfer to win the career grand slam with a win at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, then a win at the U.S. Open, in which Sports Illustrated magazine described as “the greatest performance in golf history,” followed by a win at the Open Championship at St. Andrews. For more on Woods’ style of playing, read golf magazines like Golf Digest, Golf magazine and Sports Illustrated.

For the next few years Woods remained a top competitor but failed to win any major events in 2003 or 2004. In September 2004 his record of 264 consecutive weeks as the world’s number 1 golfer came to an end when Vijay Singh overtook him. Many golf magazine insiders speculated at Woods’ slump.

In 2004 Woods married Elin Nordegren, a Swedish model, in Barbados and in 2005 Woods was back to winning tournaments breaking his winning drought with a win at the Masters Tournament playoff. In 2006 Woods was dominating tournaments but took a 9-week hiatus after his beloved father and golf mentor Earl Woods died from prostate cancer. After his hiatus Woods went on to win the Open Championship, which he dedicated to his father.

Woods earned his 60th PGA Tour victory in 2007 and finished the season with a victory at the Tour Championship. Woods also scored big in 2007 when he and his wife welcomed daughter Sam Alexis Woods.

He started the 2008 season with an eight-stroke victory at the Buick Invitational. After a second-place finish at the Masters Tournament, Woods underwent arthroscopic surgery on his knee. He returned to a much-anticipated contest between him, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott, the best three golfers in the world. Although in great pain Woods was once again victorious. However, after the win he announced he would miss the remainder of the season due to his knee and would undergo ACL surgery.

For more on Tiger Woods recovery process read golf magazines like Golf Digest, Golf World, Golf magazine and Sports Illustrated. Men’s Fitness magazine named Woods the Fittest Athlete in the June/July issue.