Tiger Woods

• 1. Introduction

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  Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters by twelve strokes, and the margin was only the beginning of what made that week strange. On the 13th of April 1997 he finished 18 under par with a total of 270, leaving runner-up Tom Kite far behind. Woods was 21, the youngest champion in the tournament's history. Two months later he stood first in the Official World Golf Ranking, the fastest climb to that position anyone had made. He had been a professional for less than a year.

  Eldrick Tont Woods is an American golfer, widely regarded as one of the greatest ever to play the game. He is also counted among the most famous athletes of the modern age. This documentary follows the questions his career raises. How did a child barely out of toddlerhood become a television curiosity? Why did skilled professionals measurably play worse when he was in the field? What happens to a man whose name sells watches, cars and sports drinks when his private life, his body and his judgment fail in public? And how did he return, more than once, to win again?

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• 2. Names and Roots

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  Cypress, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, is where Eldrick Tont Woods was born on the 30th of December 1975. He was the only child of Earl and Kultida Woods, called Tida, whose maiden name was Punsawad. A father's earlier marriage had given him two half-brothers and a half-sister.

  Earl was a retired U.S. Army officer and a veteran of the Vietnam War. He met Kultida in Thailand in 1968, during his tour of duty there. Earl's parents were African American, and he was also described as having European, Chinese and Cherokee ancestry. Kultida was of mixed Thai, Chinese and Dutch descent. In 2002, ESPN reduced the arithmetic to "one-quarter Thai, one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Caucasian, one-eighth African American and one-eighth Native American." Woods preferred his own label, "Cablinasian," a word he coined by joining Caucasian, Black, American Indian and Asian.

  His mother chose the first name. Eldrick begins with an E for Earl and ends with a K for Kultida. Tont, the middle name, is a traditional Thai name. The nickname Tiger honors Vuong Dang Phong, a South Vietnamese colonel and friend of Earl who was himself known as Tiger.

  Golf runs further through the family. His niece, Cheyenne Woods, played college golf at Wake Forest University and turned professional in 2012, making her debut at the LPGA Championship. Kultida died on the 4th of February 2025. Afterward Woods said that without her none of his personal achievements would have been possible.

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• 3. Prodigy Years

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  In 1978 a toddler putted against the comedian Bob Hope on The Mike Douglas Show. Woods had been introduced to golf before the age of two by his father. Earl was an accomplished athlete and an amateur with a single-digit handicap. He had also been among the earliest African American players on the college baseball team at Kansas State University. Woods later said he once hoped to follow Earl into baseball. He dropped the idea after tearing his rotator cuff.

  Earl's military service opened doors. It gave the family playing privileges at the Navy Golf Course beside the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos. Woods also played the par-3 Heartwell Golf Course in Long Beach and several municipal courses in that city. At three he shot a 48 over nine holes at the Navy course. At five he appeared in Golf Digest and on the ABC show That's Incredible!. Before turning seven he won the under-age-10 division of the Drive, Pitch, and Putt contest at the Navy course.

  Trophies piled up. In 1984, aged eight, he won the 9-10 boys' event at the Junior World Golf Championships, the youngest group on offer. He first broke 80 that same year. He would take the Junior World title six times, including four in a row from 1988 to 1991. Earl later wrote that his son beat him for the first time at age 11, with Earl playing his best. Earl never beat him again. At 12, Woods broke 70 on a regulation course.

  At 13, in the 1989 Big I, he was paired in the final round with a little-known professional named John Daly. Daly birdied three of the last four holes and won by a single stroke. As a young teenager Woods also took part in a Jack Nicklaus clinic at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles. He impressed both Nicklaus and the crowd. Earl had studied Nicklaus's records closely and treated them as targets for his son.

  At 15, a student at Western High School in Anaheim, Woods became the youngest U.S. Junior Amateur champion. The record held until Jim Liu broke it in 2010. In 1992 he became the first two-time winner of that event, and he played his first PGA Tour event, the Nissan Los Angeles Open, where he missed the 36-hole cut. A third straight junior title came in 1993, and nobody else has won it three times. In 1994, at TPC Sawgrass in Florida, he became the youngest U.S. Amateur champion, a mark that lasted until Danny Lee broke it in 2008. That year he played on the winning U.S. team at the Eisenhower Trophy. In 1995 he was on the losing side at the Walker Cup.

  He graduated from Western High in 1994 at 18, and his classmates voted him Most Likely to Succeed. Success concealed a private struggle. Woods learned as a child to manage a stutter. The world found out when he wrote to a boy who had considered suicide. "I know what it's like to be different and to sometimes not fit in. I also stuttered as a child and I would talk to my dog and he would sit there and listen until he fell asleep. I also took a class for two years to help me, and I finally learned to stop."

  Stanford University, the reigning NCAA champion, won the recruiting contest, and Woods enrolled in the fall of 1994 on a golf scholarship. That September he won his first collegiate event, the 40th Annual William H. Tucker Invitational. He majored in economics. Teammate Notah Begay III nicknamed him "Urkel." In 1995 he defended his U.S. Amateur title at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island. He was voted Pac-10 Player of the Year and Stanford's male freshman of the year, an honor covering every sport.

  At 19 he played his first major, the 1995 Masters, tied for 41st and was the only amateur to make the cut. In 1996, at 20, he became the first golfer to win three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles, and he also took the NCAA individual championship. His 281 at The Open Championship earned the silver medal as leading amateur and tied the amateur scoring record. He then left Stanford after two years to turn professional. That same year he moved out of California, saying in 2013 that the state's high tax rate was the reason.

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• 4. The Dominant Years

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  Fifteen strokes was the winning margin at the 2000 U.S. Open, a record. Sports Illustrated called the display "the greatest performance in golf history." Woods broke or tied nine tournament records and collected $800,000. The victory made him the only golfer to have won the U.S. Junior Amateur, the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open. At 24 he also became the youngest player to complete the Career Grand Slam.

  The road there had a dip. After a lackluster 1998, Woods won eight times in 1999, including the PGA Championship. No one had matched that total since Johnny Miller in 1974. A physical problem lay underneath. Woods was severely nearsighted, with eyesight rated at 11 diopters. Laser surgery in 1999 corrected it, and he went straight back to winning. His vision slipped again in 2007, and he had a second laser procedure.

  In 2000 he won six consecutive events, the longest streak on the PGA Tour since Ben Hogan in 1948. Of the twenty events he entered that year, he won nine, and he set the tour record for lowest scoring average. Sports Illustrated named him Sportsman of the Year for the second time. He was the first recipient of the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award, and he won it again in 2001. In 2000 the BBC also gave him its Overseas Sports Personality award.

  With his victory at the 2001 Masters, Woods held all four professional major titles at once. The four wins were spread across two calendar years, and the feat came to be called the Tiger Slam. No other player has won four majors in a row.

  From August 1999 to September 2004, Woods stayed number one in the world for 264 consecutive weeks. Vijay Singh finally ended that run in September 2004. Woods had not won a major in 2003 or 2004. In 2005 he won six PGA Tour events and traded the top spot back and forth with Singh before reclaiming it. A second reign of 281 consecutive weeks began that year and ended in October 2010.

  Earl Woods died on the 3rd of May 2006. Woods took time off, and on his return at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club he missed the cut. He recovered quickly and closed the year with six wins in a row. By the end of the season he had 54 tour wins, 12 of them majors.

  In April 2008 Woods had knee surgery and missed two months. He returned for the 2008 U.S. Open, struggled on the first day, and beat Rocco Mediate in sudden death after an 18-hole playoff. It was the last time an 18-hole playoff was used in competition. Mediate said, "This guy does things that are just not normal by any stretch of the imagination." Kenny Perry added, "He beat everybody on one leg." Two days later Woods announced more knee surgery and the end of his season. The knee was more badly damaged than anyone knew. Woods called the win "my greatest ever championship." Without him, television ratings for the rest of the year fell sharply from 2007.

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• 5. The Tiger Effect

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  "Isn't Tiger Woods actually bad for golf?" Sportswriter Bill Lyon of Knight Ridder posed that question in a column early in Woods's career, though he decided the answer was no. Some analysts feared that Woods would make existing courses obsolete and leave everyone else playing for second place. Jennifer Brown, an economist at the University of California, found a measurable version of that fear. Highly skilled golfers scored nearly one stroke worse when Woods was in the field. The gap widened during his winning streaks and vanished during his slump of 2003 and 2004. Her explanation was about effort. Against rivals of similar skill, trying harder can raise your chances. Against a superstar it barely helps, and it adds the risk of injury or exhaustion, so players ease off.

  Courses responded. Many venues in the tour rotation, including major sites such as Augusta National, added yardage to their tees to blunt the edge of long hitters like Woods. The strategy was nicknamed "Tiger-proofing." Woods said he welcomed the change and that extra length did not hurt his ability to win.

  Yet power was never his only weapon. When he joined the tour in 1996, his long drives astonished the field, but he stayed loyal to True Temper Dynamic Gold steel shafts and smaller steel clubheads that favored accuracy. Opponents caught up. In 2003 Phil Mickelson joked that Woods played with "inferior equipment," which irritated Nike, Titleist and Woods alike. In 2004 Woods switched to a larger clubhead and a graphite shaft, and his clubhead speed put him among the longest drivers again.

  His driving accuracy has often ranked near the bottom of the tour. His iron play is generally accurate, his bunker play and recoveries are very strong, and his putting under pressure is possibly his greatest asset. He is credited with raising the athletic standard of professional golfers, and he is known for practicing more hours than most.

  Butch Harmon coached him from mid-1993 until 2004. From mid-1997 they rebuilt his full swing for consistency and distance control, and the work began paying off in 1999. Hank Haney took over in March 2004 and worked to flatten the swing plane. Woods kept winning, but his driving accuracy dropped sharply. Haney resigned in May 2010 under questionable circumstances, and Sean Foley replaced him. Woods and Foley parted ways on the 25th of August 2014. Under Foley he had won eight times but no majors, against eight majors with Harmon and six with Haney.

  The bag carriers changed too. Fluff Cowan caddied for Woods from the start of his professional career until Woods dismissed him in March 1999. Steve Williams replaced him, became a close friend and is often credited with helping on key shots and putts. In mid-2011 Woods dismissed Williams after Williams caddied for Adam Scott at the U.S. Open. Friend Bryon Bell filled in until Joe LaCava, a former caddie for Fred Couples and Dustin Johnson, was hired and stayed.

  When Woods held at least a share of the lead going into the final round of a major, his record was 14-1. Experts called him the greatest closer in history. He won in his 100th tour start in 2000, his 200th in 2006 and his 300th at the 2013 Players Championship.

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• 6. Falls and Returns

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  At about 2:30 in the morning on the 27th of November 2009, Woods drove his Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant, a tree and several hedges near his Florida home. Two days earlier the National Enquirer had alleged that he had an affair with New York City nightclub manager Rachel Uchitel, who denied it. He had married Elin Nordegren, a Swedish former model, on the 5th of October 2004 at the Sandy Lane resort in Barbados. Jesper Parnevik, who had employed her as an au pair, introduced them at The Open Championship in 2001. Their daughter Sam Alexis was born in 2007, named for the nickname Earl always used for his son. Their son Charlie Axel followed in 2009.

  Woods was treated for minor facial cuts and cited for careless driving. His first statement took sole responsibility, called the crash a private matter and credited his wife with helping him from the car. On the 30th of November he withdrew from his own Chevron World Challenge and every other 2009 event. On the 2nd of December, after Us Weekly reported another alleged affair and released a voicemail attributed to him, he admitted "transgressions." More than a dozen women then made claims in the media. On the 11th of December he admitted infidelity and announced "an indefinite break from professional golf."

  Sponsors reacted fast. Accenture, AT&T and General Motors ended their deals, and Gillette suspended its advertising with him. TAG Heuer dropped him from ads that December and let the partnership lapse in August 2011. Golf Digest paused his monthly column. Nike and Electronic Arts stayed. A study that month estimated shareholder losses tied to the scandal at between $5 billion and $12 billion.

  On the 19th of February 2010, Woods delivered a televised statement and said he had finished a 45-day therapy program. "I felt I was entitled," he said. "I was wrong. I was foolish." He had been raised a Buddhist and blamed his lapse on losing track of that faith. "Buddhism teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught." He and Nordegren divorced on the 23rd of August 2010, after almost six years of marriage.

  He returned at the 2010 Masters and tied for fourth. The year still became his first as a professional without a win, though he ended it ranked second in the world. In 2011 injuries and poor form pushed his ranking as low as 58th. A December victory at the Chevron World Challenge ended the drought. In 2012 he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational, then took the Memorial Tournament in June for his 73rd PGA Tour win, tying Jack Nicklaus. A month later the AT&T National win moved him past Nicklaus, behind only Sam Snead.

  The Farmers Insurance Open in January 2013 brought his 75th tour win, by four shots. Victories at the WGC-Cadillac Championship and the Arnold Palmer Invitational returned him to number one. Nike answered with an advertisement carrying the tagline "winning takes care of everything." At the 2013 Masters, Woods admitted in an ESPN interview that he had taken an illegal drop on the par-5 15th hole, after his shot hit the pin and rolled into the water. He was given a two-stroke penalty rather than disqualified and tied for fourth.

  Then the back gave out. Woods withdrew from The Honda Classic in 2014 after 13 holes, and surgery meant he missed the Masters for the first time since 1994. At the 2015 Masters his club struck a tree root, and he said a bone in his wrist popped out before he pushed it back. He had back surgery on the 16th of September 2015. In 2016 he missed all four majors in one year for the first time. That October he told Charlie Rose on PBS that he still wanted to break Nicklaus's record of 18 major titles.

  In March 2017 he pulled out of the Masters, saying he did not feel "tournament ready," and told friends, "I'm done." On the 20th of April 2017 he announced his fourth back surgery since 2014. He came back at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, shooting 69-68-75-68 to tie for ninth. His world ranking leapt from 1,199th to 668th, the biggest jump of his career.

  In 2018 he tied for second at the Valspar Championship and finished second at the PGA Championship, two shots behind Brooks Koepka. His final-round 64 there was his best ever in a major. On the 23rd of September 2018 he won the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club, his 80th PGA Tour victory, by two strokes over Billy Horschel.

  The 14th of April 2019 brought the Masters, his 15th major and his first in eleven years. He finished 13 under par, one stroke ahead of Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele and Koepka. At 43 he became the second-oldest Masters champion, after Nicklaus, who was 46 in 1986. In May 2019 President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In October 2019 he won the Zozo Championship, the first PGA Tour event ever played in Japan, by three strokes over Hideki Matsuyama. It was his 82nd tour win, tying Snead for the all-time record.

  During the PNC Championship in December 2020, a pressurized fragment of disc was pinching a nerve and causing him pain. He had a microdiscectomy, his fifth back operation.

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• 7. Building the Brand

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  Five years and $105 million: that was the Nike contract extension Woods signed in 2000, the largest endorsement package any professional athlete had signed at that point. His commercial life had begun the moment he turned professional in August 1996, when Nike and Titleist signed him to the richest endorsement deals golf had seen. General Motors, General Mills, American Express and Accenture followed.

  Nike Golf grew from a start-up into the leading golf apparel company, and his endorsement is credited with a major role. Sales were estimated at $600 million, and a building at Nike's headquarters campus in Beaverton, Oregon carries his name. In 2002 he helped launch the Buick Rendezvous, and Buick reported more than 130,000 sold in 2002 and 2003. In February 2004 Buick renewed him for another five years, reportedly for $40 million.

  In April 2005 TAG Heuer released the first professional golf watch, developed with his input. The titanium watch can absorb up to 5,000 Gs of shock, far more than a swing produces. It won the iF product design award in 2006. Woods has endorsed the Tiger Woods PGA Tour video games since 1999 and signed a six-year deal with Electronic Arts in 2006. In 2007 he joined Roger Federer and Thierry Henry as an ambassador for Gillette.

  Gatorade Tiger, his own sports drink, launched in March 2008. Golfweek reported a five-year deal worth as much as $100 million. The company dropped the drink in early fall 2009 because sales were weak. In 2014 a Florida jury sided with a memorabilia dealer, Gotta Have It, in a long dispute over unauthorized sales of images of Woods and Arnold Palmer, awarding $668,346.

  When Nike left the equipment business in 2016, Woods went looking for a club partner. On the 25th of January 2017 he signed with TaylorMade and kept his Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS putter, used to win 13 of his 15 majors. Monster Energy became his primary bag sponsor. On the 8th of January 2024 he ended his 27-year relationship with Nike. A month later TaylorMade announced his apparel line, Sun Day Red, built around his signature red shirt.

  The money piled up with the wins. Golf Digest calculated that he earned more than $769 million from 1996 to 2007. In 2009 Forbes confirmed he was the first professional athlete to earn over a billion dollars in a career, after counting a $10 million bonus for the FedEx Cup title. It put his net worth that year at $600 million, behind only Oprah Winfrey among people of color in the United States. Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.5 billion by April 2026.

  Not every venture paid off. Woods announced Tiger Woods Design in November 2006 to build courses worldwide. Its first project, the Al Ruwaya Golf Course in Dubai, had only seven holes finished by February 2010, and in April 2011 The New York Times reported it shelved for good. The Cliffs at High Carolina, near Asheville, North Carolina, began construction in November 2008 but ran into cash-flow trouble. The 800-acre site sold for $19.3 million in 2019. A Mexican project at Punta Brava never started. Optimistic valuations, the housing collapse and the damage to his image after 2009 all played a part.

  The TGR Foundation began in 1996 as the Tiger Woods Foundation, started by Woods and Earl to bring golf to inner-city children. The Tiger Woods Learning Center in Anaheim opened in 2006 as a $50-million, 35,000-square-foot home for college-access programs, with seven classrooms. It later added campuses in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Stuart, Florida.

  His name also sits on bookshelves. He wrote a Golf Digest instruction column from 1997 to February 2011. His 2001 book How I Play Golf had the largest first print run of any golf book, 1.5 million copies. In March 2017 he published The 1997 Masters: My Story with Lorne Rubenstein. On the 28th of September 2021 he released his first NFT collection, 10,000 images of his famous moments priced from $12 to $1,500.

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• 8. Crashes and Consequences

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  At about 3:00 in the morning on the 29th of May 2017, Jupiter Police found Woods asleep in his car near his Florida home. The engine was running, and the car sat in a traffic lane. He was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He said he had taken prescription medication and had not realized how the drugs might interact. On the 27th of October he pleaded guilty to reckless driving and received a year of probation, a $250 fine, 50 hours of community service and regular drug testing.

  On the 23rd of February 2021, Woods survived a single-vehicle rollover on Hawthorne Boulevard in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Investigators said he had been driving over 80 miles per hour, nearly twice the posted limit. He was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for surgery on compound fractures in his right leg and a shattered ankle. No charges were filed. In a November 2021 interview with Golf Digest, he said his full-time professional career was over, though he planned to play a limited schedule. At the 2022 Masters he made the cut and finished 47th at 13 over, 23 shots behind Scottie Scheffler.

  His next ventures centered on a different arena. In August 2022 Woods, Rory McIlroy, Mike McCarley and the PGA Tour announced TGL, a six-team virtual league. In November 2023 Woods revealed he was co-owner and a player for Jupiter Links Golf Club, founded with investment from David Blitzer. In March 2026 Jupiter Links beat Boston Commons to reach the finals, then lost the title match to the Los Angeles Golf Club.

  On the 27th of March 2026, shortly after that tournament, Woods was in a two-vehicle rollover near his home on Jupiter Island, Florida. Investigators said he tried to pass a pressure-cleaner truck at high speed before his SUV rolled onto its side. Authorities described "signs of impairment." A breath test found no alcohol, and Woods declined a urine test. He told officers he had been looking down at his phone and changing the radio. Police found two white hydrocodone pills in his left pants pocket. Woods had to sit down during the sobriety test, which confirmed the physical limits he now lived with. By then he had undergone 20 leg surgeries and seven back surgeries.

  He was arrested after failing field sobriety tests and was later released. His arrest affidavit listed three misdemeanor charges. On the 31st of March, his lawyer Douglas Duncan entered a not-guilty plea, and Woods demanded a jury trial. Body camera footage released on the 2nd of April showed him saying, "I was talking to the president." Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley confirmed Woods would not play the 2026 Masters. Woods announced he was "stepping away" to "seek treatment" and would step down as chair of the PGA Tour's Future Competition Committee. On the 1st of April he received approval to leave the United States for "comprehensive inpatient treatment."

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