golf tiger woods
Eldrick "Tiger" Woods[1] (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Currently the World No. 1, Woods was the highest-paid professional athlete in 2006, having earned an estimated $100 million from winnings and endorsements.[2] Golf Digest predicts Woods will become the world's first billionaire athlete in 2010.[3]
Woods has won thirteen professional major golf championships, the second highest of any male player, and 64 PGA Tour events, tied for third all time. He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on Tour. Woods has held the number one position in the world rankings for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record nine times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has tied Jack Nicklaus's record of leading the money list in eight different seasons. He has been named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year four times, a record he shares with Lance Armstrong. He is also the only person to be named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year more than once.
Woods, who is multiracial, is credited with prompting a major surge of interest in the game of golf. Woods doubled attendance and TV ratings, and generated interest among a multicultural audience in a game that used to be considered insular and elitistEldrick "Tiger" Woods was born on December 30, 1975 in Cypress, California to Earl (1932-2006) and Kultida Woods (from Thailand). He is the only child of their marriage but has two half-brothers, Earl Jr. (born 1955) and Kevin (born 1957), and one half-sister, Royce (born 1958) from the 18-year marriage of Earl Woods and his first wife, Barbara Woods Gray. Earl, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and Vietnam War veteran, was of mixed African American (50 percent), Chinese (25 percent) and Native American (25 percent) ancestry. Kultida (nee Punsawad), originally from Thailand, is of mixed Thai (50 percent), Chinese (25 percent), and Dutch (25 percent) ancestry. This makes Woods himself one-quarter Chinese, one quarter Thai, one quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch.[6] He refers to his ethnic make-up as “Cablinasian” (a portmanteau term he coined from Caucasian, Black, American-Indian, and Asian).[7] Woods is a Buddhist. He has said that his faith was acquired from his mother and that it helps control both his stubbornness and impatience. [8]
Tiger Woods got his nickname from a Vietnamese soldier friend of his father, Vuong Dang Phong, to whom his father had also given the "Tiger" nickname. Woods became generally known by that name and by the time he had achieved national prominence in junior and amateur golf was simply known as "Tiger" Woods. On his twenty-first birthday, Woods legally changed his name from Eldrick to Tiger.[9]
Woods grew up in Orange County, and graduated from Western High School in Anaheim in 1994.
In November 2003, Woods became engaged to Elin Nordegren, a Swedish model. They were introduced during The Open Championship in 2001 by Swedish golf star Jesper Parnevik, who had employed her as a nanny. They married on October 5, 2004 at the Sandy Lane resort on the Caribbean island of Barbados and live at Isleworth, a community in Windermere, a suburb of Orlando, Florida. They also have homes in Jackson, Wyoming, California, and Sweden. In January 2006, Woods and his wife purchased a $39 million residential property in Jupiter Island, Florida, which they intend to make their primary residence.[10] Woods' Jupiter Island neighbors will include fellow golfers Gary Player, Greg Norman and Nick Price, as well as singers Celine Dion and Alan Jackson. In 2007, a guest house on the Jupiter Island estate was destroyed in a fire caused by lightning.[11]
Early in the morning of June 18, 2007, Elin gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, Sam Alexis Woods, in Orlando.[12] The birth occurred just one day after Woods finished tied for second in the 2007 U.S. Open.[13] Tiger chose to name his daughter Sam because his father said that Tiger looked more like a SamWoods was a child prodigy who began to play golf at the age of two. In 1978, he putted against comedian Bob Hope in a television appearance on The Mike Douglas Show. At age three, Woods shot a 48 over nine holes at the Navy Golf Club in Cypress, California, and at age five, he appeared in Golf Digest and on ABC's That's Incredible.[16] In 1984 at the age of eight he won the 9–10 boys' event, the youngest age group available, at the Junior World Golf Championships.[17] Woods went on to win the Junior World Championships six times, including four consecutive wins from 1988 to 1991.[18][19][20][21][22] While attending Western High School in Anaheim, CA, at the age of 15, he became the youngest ever U.S. Junior Amateur Champion, was voted Southern California Amateur Player of the Year for the second consecutive year, and Golf Digest Junior Amateur Player of the Year 1991.[23] He successfully defended his title at the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, becoming the first multiple winner, competed in his first PGA Tour event, the Nissan Los Angeles Open and was named Golf Digest Amateur Player of the Year, Golf World Player of the Year and Golfweek National Amateur of the Year in 1992.[24][25]
The following year, he won his third consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, and remains the event's youngest-ever and only multiple winner.[26] In 1994, Woods became the youngest ever winner of the U.S. Amateur Championship. He was a member of the American team at the 1994 Eisenhower Trophy World Amateur Golf Team Championships and 1995 Walker Cup.[27][28] Later that year, he enrolled at Stanford University, and won his first collegiate event, the William Tucker Invitational. He declared a major in Economics and was nicknamed "Urkel" by his college teammates.[29] In 1995, Woods defended his U.S. Amateur title, and was voted Pac-10 Player of the Year, NCAA First Team All-American, and Stanford's Male Freshman of the Year (an award that encompasses all sports).[30][31] He participated in his first PGA Tour major, The Masters, and tied for 41st as the only amateur to make the cut. At age 20 in 1996, Woods became the first golfer to win three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles and won the NCAA individual golf championship.[32] In winning the Silver Medal as leading amateur at The Open Championship, Woods tied the record for an amateur aggregate score of 281.[33] He left college after two years and turned professional.
With the announcement, "Hello World," Tiger Woods became a professional golfer in August 1996, and signed endorsement deals worth $40 million from Nike and $20 million from Titleist.[34][35] He played his first round of professional golf at the Greater Milwaukee Open, tying for 60th place, but went on to win two events in the next three months to qualify for the Tour Championship. For his efforts, Woods was named Sports Illustrated's 1996 Sportsman of the Year and PGA Rookie of the Year.[4] He began his tradition of wearing a red shirt during the final round of tournaments, a link to his college days at Stanford and a color he believes symbolizes aggression and assertiveness.[36][37]
The following April, Woods won his first golf major, The Masters, by a record margin of 12 strokes, becoming the youngest Masters winner and the first winner of African-American or Asian-American descent.[38] He set a total of 20 Masters records and tied 6 others. He won another three PGA Tour events that year, and on June 15, 1997, in only his 42nd week as a professional, rose to number one in the Official World Golf Rankings, the fastest ever ascent to world No. 1.[39] He was named PGA Player of the Year, the first golfer to win the award the year following his rookie season.
While expectations for Woods were high, Woods' form faded in the second half of 1997, and in 1998 he only won one PGA Tour event. Woods answered critics of his "slump" and what seemed to be wavering form by maintaining he was undergoing extensive swing changes with his coach, Butch Harmon, and was hoping to do better in the futureIn June 1999, Woods won the Memorial Tournament, a victory that marked the beginning of one of the greatest sustained periods of dominance in the history of men's golf. He completed his 1999 campaign by winning his last four starts, including the PGA Championship, and finished the season with eight wins — a feat not achieved in the past 25 years. He was voted PGA Tour Player of the Year and Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year for the second time in three years.
Woods rang in the new millennium with his fifth consecutive victory and began a record-setting season, where he would win three consecutive majors, nine PGA Tour events, and set or tie 27 Tour records. He went on to capture his sixth consecutive victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am with a comeback for the ages. Trailing by seven strokes with seven holes to play, Woods finished eagle-birdie-par-birdie for a 64 and a two-stroke victory. His six consecutive wins were the most since Hogan in 1948 and only five behind Byron Nelson’s record of eleven in a row. In the 2000 U.S. Open, Woods broke or tied a total of nine U.S. Open records with his 15-shot win, including Old Tom Morris's record for the largest victory margin ever in a major championship, which had stood since 1862, and became the Tour's all-time career money leader. He led by a record 10 strokes going into the final round, and Sports Illustrated called it "the greatest performance in golf history."[41] In the 2000 Open Championship at St Andrews, which he won by eight strokes, Woods set the record for lowest score to par (−19) in any major tournament, and he holds at least a share of that record in all four major championships. At 24 he became the youngest golfer to achieve the Career Grand Slam.[42] His major championship streak was seriously threatened at the 2000 PGA Championship, however, when Bob May went head-to-head with Woods on Sunday at Valhalla Golf Club. Woods played the last twelve holes of regulation seven under par, and won a three-hole playoff with a birdie on the first hole and pars on the next two. He joined Ben Hogan (1953) as the only other player to win three professional majors in one season. Three weeks later, Woods won his third straight start on Tour at the Bell Canadian Open, becoming only the second man after Lee Trevino in 1971 to win the Triple Crown of Golf (U.S., British, and Canadian Opens) in one year. Of the twenty events he entered in 2000, he finished in the top three fourteen times. His adjusted scoring average of 67.79 and his actual scoring average of 68.17 were the lowest in PGA Tour history, besting his own record of 68.43 in 1999 and Byron Nelson's average of 68.33 in 1945, respectively. He was named the 2000 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year.[43] Woods was ranked as the twelfth best golfer of all time by Golf Digest magazine just four years after he turned professional.[44]
The following season, Woods continued dominating. His 2001 Masters win marked the only time within the era of the modern "grand slam" that any player has been the holder of all four major championship titles at the same time, a feat now known as the "Tiger Slam." It is not viewed as a true Grand Slam, however, because it was not achieved in a calendar year. Surprisingly, Woods was not a factor in the three remaining majors of the year, but finished with the most PGA Tour wins in the season, with five. In 2002, Woods started off strong, joining Nick Faldo (1989-90) and Jack Nicklaus (1965-66) as the only men to have won back-to-back Masters. Two months later, Woods was the only player under par at the U.S. Open, and resurrected buzz about the calendar Grand Slam, which had eluded him in 2000. All eyes were on Woods at the Open Championship, but his third round score of 81 ended Grand Slam hopes. At the PGA Woods nearly repeated his 2000 feat of winning three majors in one year but bogeys at the thirteenth and fourteenth holes in the final round cost him the championship by one stroke. Nonetheless, he took home the money title, Vardon Trophy, and Player of the Year honors for the fourth year in a row.
The next phase of Woods' career saw him remain among the top competitors on the tour, but lose his dominating edge. He did not win a major in 2003 or 2004, falling to second in the PGA Tour money list in 2003 and fourth in 2004. In September 2004, Woods' record streak of 264 consecutive weeks as the world's top-ranked golfer came to an end at the Deutsche Bank Championship, when Vijay Singh won and overtook Woods in the Official World Golf Rankings. Many commentators were puzzled by Woods' "slump," offering explanations that ranged from Woods' rift with swing coach Butch Harmon to his marriage. At the same time, Woods let it be known that he was again working on changes to his swing, this time in hopes of reducing the wear and tear on his surgically-repaired left knee, which was subjected to severe stress in the 1998–2003 version of his swing.[40][45] Again, Woods anticipated that once the adjustments were complete, he would return to his previous form.
In the 2005 season, Woods quickly returned to his winning ways. He won the Buick Invitational in January and in March he outplayed Phil Mickelson to win the Ford Championship at Doral and temporarily return to the Official World Golf Rankings number one position (Singh displaced him once again two weeks later).[36] In April Woods finally broke his "drought" in the majors by winning the 2005 Masters in a playoff, which regained him the number one spot in the World Rankings. Singh and Woods swapped the number 1 position several times over the next couple of months, but by early July, Woods had established an advantage, propelled further by a victory at the 2005 Open Championship, a win that gave him his 10th major. Woods went on to win six official money events on the PGA Tour in 2005, topping the money list for the sixth time in his career. Woods' 2005 wins also included two at the World Golf Championships.
Woods on the green at The Masters in 2006.For Woods, the year 2006 was markedly different from 2005. While he began just as dominantly (winning the first two tournaments he entered on the year) and was in the hunt for his fifth Masters championship in April, Woods never mounted a Sunday charge to defend his title, allowing Phil Mickelson to claim the green jacket.
On May 3, 2006, Woods' father/mentor/inspiration, Earl, died after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. Woods took a nine-week-long hiatus from the PGA Tour to be with his family. When he returned for the 2006 U.S. Open, the rust was evident — he missed the cut at Winged Foot, the first time he had missed the cut at a major as a professional, and ended his record-tying streak of 39 consecutive cuts made at majors. A tie for second at the Western Open just three weeks later showed him poised to defend his Open crown at Hoylake.
At the Open Championship, Woods staged a tour de force in course management, putting, and accuracy with irons. Using almost exclusively long irons off the tee (he hit driver only one time the entire week — the 16th hole of the first round), Woods missed just four fairways all week (hitting the fairway 92 percent of the time), and his score of −18 to par (three eagles, nineteen birdies, 43 pars, and seven bogeys) was just one off of his major championship record −19, set at St Andrews in 2000. The victory was an emotional one for Woods, who dedicated his play to his father's memory. Four weeks later, at the PGA Championship, Woods again won in dominating fashion — making only three bogeys, tying the record for fewest in a major. He finished the tournament at 18-under-par, equaling the to-par record in the PGA that he shares with Bob May. In August 2006 he won his 50th professional tournament at the Buick Open, and at the age of thirty years and seven months, he became the youngest to do so. He ended the year by winning six consecutive PGA Tour events, and won the 3 most prestigious awards given by the PGA Tour (Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Byron Nelson Awards) in the same year for a record seventh time. At the close of his first eleven seasons, Woods' 54 wins and 12 major wins had eclipsed the all time eleven-season PGA Tour total win record of 51 (set by Byron Nelson) and total majors record of 11 (set by Jack Nicklaus). He was named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year for a record-tying fourth time.[46]
Woods and tennis star Roger Federer, who share a major sponsor, have developed a friendship and first met at the 2006 U.S. Open tennis final. Since then, they have attended each other's events and have voiced their mutual appreciation for each other's talents.[47][48][49][50]
Woods began 2007 with a two-stroke victory at the Buick Invitational for his third straight win at the event and his seventh consecutive win on the PGA Tour. The victory marked the fifth time he has won his first tournament of the season. With this win, he became the third man (after Jack Nicklaus and Sam Snead) to win at least five times in three different events on the PGA Tour (his two other events are the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and WGC-CA Championship). Woods earned his second victory of the year at the WGC-CA Championship for his third consecutive and sixth win overall at the event. With this victory, he became the first player to have three consecutive victories in five different events. At the 2007 Masters Tournament, Woods was in the final group on the last day of a major for the thirteenth time in his career, but unlike the previous twelve occasions in the final group, he was unable to win. He finished tied for second two strokes behind winner Zach Johnson. Woods earned his third victory of the season by two strokes at the Wachovia Championship, the 24th different PGA Tour tournament Woods has won. He has collected at least three wins in a season nine times in his 12-year career. At the U.S. Open, Woods was in the final group for the fourth consecutive major championship, but began the day two strokes back and finished tied for second once again. His dubious streak of never having come from behind to win on the final day of a major continued.
In search of a record-tying third consecutive Open Championship, Woods fell out of contention with a second-round 75, and never mounted a charge over the weekend. Although his putting was solid (he sank a 90-footer in the first round), his iron play held him back. "I wasn't hitting the ball as close as I needed to all week," Woods said, after he finished tied for twelfth, five strokes off the pace.[51] In early August, Woods won his record 14th World Golf Championships event at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational by 8 strokes for his third consecutive and sixth victory overall at the event. He became the first golfer to win the same event three straight times on two different occasions (1999-2001) and (2005-2007). The following week, Woods won his 2nd straight PGA Championship by defeating Woody Austin by two strokes. He became the first golfer to win the PGA Championship in back-to-back seasons on two different occasions: 1999-2000 and 2006-2007. He became the second golfer, after Sam Snead, to have won at least five events on the PGA Tour in eight different seasons. Woods earned his 60th PGA Tour victory at the BMW Championship by shooting a course record 63 in the final round to win by two strokes. He sank a fifty-foot putt in the final round and missed only two fairways on the weekend. He led the field in most birdies for the tournament, and ranked in the top five in driving accuracy, driving distance, putts per round, putts per green, and greens in regulation. Woods finished his 2007 season with a runaway victory at the Tour Championship to capture his fourth title in his last five starts of the year. He became the only two-time winner of the event, and the champion of the inaugural FedEx Cup. In his 16 starts on Tour in 2007, Woods' adjusted scoring average was 67.79, matching his own record set in 2000. His substantial leads over the second, third, and fourth players were similar in 2000 (1.46 (Phil Mickelson), 1.52 (Ernie Els), 1.66 (David Duval)) and 2007 (1.50 (Els), 1.51 (Justin Rose), 1.60 (Steve Stricker)).
Woods started the 2008 season with an eight-stroke victory at the Buick Invitational. The win marked his 62nd PGA Tour victory, tying him with Arnold Palmer for fourth on the all time list. This marked his sixth victory at the event, the sixth time he has begun the PGA Tour season with a victory, and his third PGA Tour win in a row. The following week, Woods was trailing by four strokes going into the final round of the Dubai Desert Classic, but made six birdies on the back nine for a dramatic one-stroke victory. It marked his fourth straight official win, and his second win at the event. Woods took home his 15th WGC event at the Accenture Match Play Championship with a record-breaking 8 & 7 victory in the final. It was his fourth straight PGA Tour win, and fifth straight worldwide. In his next event, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Woods got off to a slow start, finishing the first round at even par and tied for 34th place. After finishing the third round in a five-way tie for first place, Woods completed his fifth consecutive PGA Tour victory with a dramatic 24-foot putt on the 18th hole to defeat Bart Bryant by a stroke. It was also the fifth career victory in this event for Woods. Geoff Ogilvy stopped Woods's run at the WGC-CA Championship, a tournament Woods had won in each of the previous three years. Woods remains the only golfer to have had more than one streak of at least five straight wins on the PGA Tour.
Despite bold predictions that Woods might again challenge for the Grand Slam, he would never mount a serious charge at the 2008 Masters, struggling with his putter through each round. He would still finish alone in 2nd, three strokes behind the champion, Trevor Immelman.
On April 15, 2008, Woods underwent his third left knee arthroscopic surgery in Park City, Utah, and will miss 4 to 6 weeks of the PGA Tour. The first was on 1994 when he had a benign tumor removed and the second in December, 2002
http://www.enterbet.com
site for pro golfer Tiger Woods, complete with video interviews, photos, ... Tiger, check out Tiger Woods bio and stats, play games, read Tiger Woods golf
the new Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 06 TV commercial as Tiger teaches some golf skills! ... Bay, Doral Golf Resort, and more as you play as or against Tiger Woods and 16
Season overview, stats, and current news for Tiger Woods. ... Masters.org USGA.org ESPN Golf Schools National Golf Challenge. Tiger Woods USA
Labels: gambling betting, golf foursome, golf leaderboard, golf masters, golf scores, golf scoring, golf tiger woods, golf vegas odds, sportsbook betting
