Tiger Woods: A Golf Legend
“Tiger knew how to swing a club before he could walk.” So says Tiger Woods’s athletic father, Earl Woods who at that time an amateur golfer.
Eldrick Woods, best known as Tiger Woods, was born on December 30, 1975, in Cypress, CA, near Los Angeles. His father nicknamed him Tiger after an army friend. Tiger was introduced to golf before the age of two. His father coached him on form, stance, and swing. At three, Woods shot a 48 for nine holes. That’s a score many adult golfers would be glad to match! And at age 5, he appeared in Golf Digest and on ABC’s That’s Incredible. Before Woods turned 16, he won an international junior tournament for his age group six times.
While doing well in golf, Woods still decided to go to college in 1994 at Stanford University. It was at Stanford University where he obtained a golf scholarship. He won his first college event, the 40th Annual William H. Tucker Invitational, in September. At Stanford, Woods was named Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Year in 1995 and won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) individual championship in 1996. Woods also captured three consecutive U.S. Amateur Championships (1994-1996). After the third of these he left college and turned professional, winning two tournaments as a rookie on the 1996 PGA Tour.
Tiger Woods dominated the world of golf in 1990s and became the top professional player in the world. He won several tournaments and set many records. In 1997, Woods became the Nike’s company spokesman and the first African American—and also the first Asian American—to win the prestigious Masters tournament, one of the most important professional golfing tournaments. Other major tournaments include the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship. In 2001, Tiger Woods became the first golfer ever to hold all four major championships at once.
By the end of 2002, Woods had won 34 tournaments on the PGA Tour. Tiger Woods’s greatest achievement, I think, is that he was able to spark the unprecedented interest in golf young people especially African American youth.