Tiger Woods.

Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods, born in 1975, American professional golfer, who has staked a claim as one of the greatest players in the sport's history. Woods has dominated professional golf since the late 1990s, winning each of the game's four major championships at least twice before the age of 30. Eldrick Woods was born in Cypress, California, to an African American father and Thai mother. His father, Earl Woods, nicknamed him Tiger after a soldier Earl had served with during the Vietnam War (1959-1975). Young Woods began playing golf as soon as he could walk, and he was soon touted as a golf prodigy and featured on several television shows. His father coached him on form, stance, and swing. The elder Woods also focused on developing his son's concentration, and soon young Tiger had learned to block out distractions during his shots. By age 6 he had recorded two holes in one. At age 15 he became the youngest player ever to win the United States Golf Association (USGA) Junior National Championship. In 1993 Woods won his third consecutive junior national title and had become one of the top players on the amateur circuit. In 1994 he played for the American team at the World Amateur Championships in Versailles, France, and enrolled at Stanford University in California. At Stanford Woods was named Pacific-10 Conference player of the year in 1995 and won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) individual championship in 1996. Woods also captured three consecutive U.S. Amateur Championships (1994-1996). After the third of these he turned professional, winning two tournaments as a rookie on the 1996 Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) Tour. In the late 1990s Woods became one of the top professional players in the world. His first major victory came at the 1997 Masters, when he set tournament records for youngest champion (21 years of age), lowest score for 72 holes (18 under par at 270), and widest margin of victory (12 strokes). Both scoring records had been set by Jack Nicklaus (271 and 9 strokes) in 1965. Woods also became the first African American and first Asian American golfer to win the prestigious event. In 1999 Woods won his second major tournament, the PGA Championship. The following year he won nine tournaments, including three straight major titles: the United States Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship. He followed this with a victory in the 2001 Masters, becoming the first golfer to hold all four major professional titles at the same time. In 2002 Woods repeated as Masters champion, making him just the third player to win the tournament in back-to-back years. He captured his eighth major championship at the 2002 U.S. Open, and many observers predicted that Woods would easily break Nicklaus's record of 18 major pro titles before his career ended. By the end of 2002 Woods had won 34 tournaments on the PGA Tour. This run of dominance slowed during the following two years, however, as Woods failed to win a major title--although he did win the 2003 PGA player of the year award (based on scoring average) for a record fifth consecutive season. He won only one PGA tournament in 2004, the lowest annual total of his professional career, and for the first time in five years he lost the top spot in the world golf rankings (to Vijay Singh of Fiji). At times Woods appeared to be struggling with his swing, and his driving rank (a score that combines accuracy and distance off the tee) fell from 11th on the tour in 2002 to 87th in 2004. Woods roared back in 2005, however. At the year's first major tournament, the Masters, he rallied from a third-round deficit to defeat Chris DiMarco in a one-hole playoff for his ninth major championship. It was the fourth Masters title for Woods, tying him with Arnold Palmer for the second most over a career (trailing only Nicklaus, who won the event six times). Woods--back at the top of the world rankings--finished second at the 2005 U.S. Open and then won the British Open by five strokes for his tenth major title. Woods competed in the 2006 U.S. Open shortly after the death of his father and missed the cut, before returning to form and retaining his British Open title in July at Hoylake and winning the PGA Championship at Medinah the following month. Woods retained the PGA Championship title in 2007, the same year he placed second at the Masters and at the U.S. Open. His PGA Championship win at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, gave him 13 major titles for his career. Woods finished individual play in 2007 by winning the first-ever FedEx Cup and its $10-million retirement annuity. The cup featured a point system based on a player's performance throughout the year in PGA Tour events and then in a four-tournament playoff round at the end of the Tour season. The playoff system, the first ever for men's professional golf, reduced the number of players to a field of 30 in the last tournament. Woods ended the year as the leading money winner on the Tour, though he fell just shy of the record one-year earnings set by Vijay Singh in 2004. Woods's career record of 61 tournament wins left him just one behind Arnold Palmer for fourth place on the career list at the end of 2007. In his first PGA tournament in 2008, the Buick Invitational, Woods tied Palmer for fourth on the career list, winning handily by eight strokes. In March 2008 Woods tied Ben Hogan for third on the all-time career list with his 64th PGA Tour victory, behind only Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus. Woods has played in five Ryder Cups (1997, 1999, 2002, 2004, and 2006), finishing on the winning side only once (in 1999). Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.