Tiger Woods, byname of Eldrick Woods, (born December 30, 1975, Cypress, California, U.S.), American golfer who enjoyed one of the greatest amateur careers in the history of the game and became the dominant player on the professional circuit in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1997 Woods became the first golfer of either African American or Asian descent to win the Masters Tournament, one of the most prestigious events in the sport. With his victory at the 2001 Masters, Woods became the first player to win consecutively the four major tournaments of golf—the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open (Open Championship), and the PGA Championship.
Woods was the kid of an African American father and a Thai mom. A naturally gifted participant, he took up {golfing} at a really younger age and shortly grew to become a prodigy, taking swings on a tv program when he was two years outdated and taking pictures a 48 over 9 holes at age three. In 1991, at age 15, he grew to become the youngest winner of the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship; he additionally captured the 1992 and 1993 Junior Amateur titles. In 1994 he got here from six holes behind to win the primary of his three consecutive U.S. Amateur Championships. He enrolled at Stanford University in 1994 and gained the collegiate title in 1996. After claiming his third U.S. Amateur title, Woods left school and turned skilled on August 29, 1996. Playing as a professional in eight PGA occasions in 1996, he gained two titles and was named the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year.
Woods was capable of generate such membership velocity that he routinely hit drives of greater than 300 yards. His booming lengthy sport, coupled along with his professional placing and chipping and his popularity for psychological toughness, made him an intimidating opponent and a well-liked participant amongst followers. At the 1997 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, Woods shot a match document 270 over 72 holes and completed 12 strokes forward of the remainder of the sector in one of many most-dominating performances within the historical past {of professional} golf. In 1999 he grew to become the primary golfer in additional than 20 years to win eight PGA tournaments in a 12 months. His six consecutive victories (1999–2000) tied Ben Hogan’s 1948 streak, the second longest in PGA historical past; Byron Nelson holds the document with 11 straight wins. In June 2000 Woods once more made historical past along with his record-breaking win on the U.S. Open. He grew to become the primary participant to complete the match at 12 underneath par, tying Jack Nicklaus for the bottom 72-hole rating (272), and Woods’s 15-stroke victory was the biggest successful margin at a serious championship. On July 23, 2000, Woods grew to become the fifth participant in golf historical past, and the youngest, to finish the profession Grand Slam of the 4 main championships by successful the British Open. (In 1930, when Bobby Jones gained the one calendar-year Grand Slam, the 4 main tournaments had been the U.S. Open, the British Open, the U.S. Amateur, and the British Amateur championships.) Woods’s victory by a cushty 8 strokes was a record-setting 19 strokes underneath par. He gained back-to-back Masters titles in 2001 and 2002.
In 2005, after a drought of 10 winless main tournaments, Woods gained the Masters and the British Open. He dominated the tour the next 12 months, successful 9 occasions, together with the British Open and the PGA Championship. In 2007 he defended his title on the latter match to say his thirteenth main championship. Some two months after present process knee surgical procedure in 2008, Woods captured his third U.S. Open title in his first match again on the tour, finishing his third profession Grand Slam, a feat matched solely by Nicklaus. Woods’s dramatic U.S. Open victory—which concerned an 18-hole play-off spherical adopted by a sudden-death play-off—aggravated the harm to his knee, and the next week he withdrew from the rest of the 2008 golf season in an effort to have more-extensive knee surgical procedure. His return to the game in 2009 featured various match wins however no main titles for the primary time since 2004. Also in 2009 Woods’s unprecedented streak of getting by no means misplaced a serious match when main or coleading after 54 holes was damaged at 14 when he misplaced the PGA Championship after being forward by two strokes earlier than the ultimate spherical.