Tiger Woods
Cypress, California, United States
Eldrick T. “Tiger” Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time.
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.
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.
Currently the world No. 1, Woods was the highest-paid professional athlete in 2007, having earned an estimated $112 million from winnings and endorsements. Golf Digest predicts Woods will become the world’s first billionaire athlete in 2010, although this record may be disputed by the claim that retired Formula One driver Michael Schumacher is already worth more than one billion dollars.
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.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Tiger Woods”.
