Tiger Woods

His mother built his first name out of the family: Eldrick, an E for Earl at the front and a K for Kultida at the end. Tiger came from a South Vietnamese colonel his father served alongside. Earl Woods, a retired Army officer and one of the earliest African American college baseball players at Kansas State, put a club in his son's hands before the boy was two, on his base privileges at the Navy course at Los Alamitos. Woods putted against Bob Hope on television in 1978, shot 48 for nine holes at three, and was in Golf Digest at five. He also stammered, and took a class for two years until it stopped. As a boy he practised on the family dog, which listened until it fell asleep.

He turned professional in August 1996, at 20, holding the richest endorsement contracts golf had seen, and eight months later won the Masters by 12 strokes at 18 under par, the youngest ever to take it, and its first Black and first Asian American champion. In 2000 he won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15 shots and took six PGA Tour events in a row. The 2001 Masters completed four straight major titles, which the game named the Tiger Slam. He has spent more weeks at number one than anyone, 264 of them consecutively, and holds 15 majors and 82 PGA Tour wins, tied for the most ever. Courses were lengthened and narrowed specifically to contain him, a practice the sport calls Tiger-proofing. He won the 2019 Masters after a spinal fusion, 11 years after his last major.

In November 2009 a tabloid reported an affair, and two nights later he put his car into a fire hydrant and a tree outside his Florida house. More than a dozen women came forward. Accenture, AT&T, Gatorade, General Motors and TAG Heuer all left. One study put the loss to his sponsors' shareholders at five to 12 billion dollars. In February 2010 he read a statement saying he had felt entitled, and the marriage ended that August. The body went next. A 2017 arrest found him asleep at the wheel with a blood alcohol reading of zero and prescription drugs in his system. In February 2021 he rolled an SUV at over 80 miles an hour in California and shattered his right leg and ankle. By 2026 he had had 20 leg operations and seven on his back.

This one is not settled. On March 27, 2026, three days after a televised indoor golf match, he rolled a second vehicle near his home on Jupiter Island. Deputies reported signs of impairment. The breathalyzer found no alcohol, he declined a urine test, and the affidavit said he took the opioid hydrocodone every morning and had to sit down partway through the sobriety test. He pleaded not guilty on March 31 and asked for a jury. Augusta National said the same day that he would miss the Masters. He said he was stepping away to seek treatment, and on April 1 a court let him leave the country for care. The 82 wins are fixed. Nothing else about him is.

Tiger Woods's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• The 1997 Masters other
  Won by 12 strokes at 18 under, the tournament's first Black and first Asian American champion 1997
• The Tiger Slam other
  Four consecutive major titles, held at once but not in one calendar year 2001
• TGR Foundation company
  Started with his father as the Tiger Woods Foundation 1996
• Tiger Woods Design company
  His golf course architecture business 2006
• TGL company
  A team indoor golf league founded with Rory McIlroy and the PGA Tour 2022
• Sun Day Red company
  The apparel line built around his red final-round shirt, after Nike ended 2024

• 1978 aged ~3 Putts against Bob Hope on The Mike Douglas Show He was two.
• 1991 aged ~16 Becomes the youngest U.S. Junior Amateur champion at 15 He won it three years running, and nobody else has.
• August 1996 aged 20 Turns professional after two years at Stanford
• April 13, 1997 aged 21 Wins the Masters by 12 strokes at 21
• June 18, 2000 aged 24 Wins the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15 strokes
• November 27, 2009 aged 33 Crashes his car outside his Florida home at 2:30 in the morning The sponsors began leaving within weeks.
• April 14, 2019 aged 43 Wins the Masters again, 11 years after his previous major
• February 23, 2021 aged 45 Rolls an SUV in California and shatters his right leg Investigators put his speed at over 80 miles an hour. No charges were filed.
• March 27, 2026 aged 50 Arrested after a rollover crash near Jupiter Island, Florida He pleaded not guilty, missed the Masters, and left the country for inpatient treatment.

• Jack Nicklaus b. 1940
  Golfer whose record in major championships and later course-design career shaped modern golf. the record he was raised to chase
• Arnold Palmer 1929–2016
  Golfer whose charisma and television popularity helped turn golf into a mass spectator sport. predecessor in the game
• Michael Jordan b. 1963
  Widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time, who became a global marketing phenomenon. the endorsement model he followed
• Donald Trump b. 1946
  Businessman, media personality, and 45th and 47th president whose populist movement transformed American politics. decorated by
• Serena Williams b. 1981
  Tennis champion with 23 Grand Slam singles titles, widely considered one of the greatest athletes ever. contemporary who broke the same ground
• Jackie Robinson 1919–1972
  First African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era, breaking the color barrier. opened the door before him