Tiger Woods
Golfer, 15-time major champion
Born 1975
Photo: The White House from Washington, DC · Public domain
«No matter how good you get you can always get better, and that's the exciting part.»
Tiger Woods is the dominant golfer of the modern era: 15 major championships, a record-equalling 82 PGA Tour wins and 683 weeks as world number one. His 1997 Masters victory at 21, by a record twelve strokes, turned golf into a global television sport and made him one of the first athletes to earn a billion dollars.
Key achievements
- Fifteen major championships, second all-time
- NCAA individual champion while at Stanford, 1996
- Record 683 weeks as world number one
Universities
Stanford, California (next to Palo Alto)
Studied economics on a golf scholarship, 1994–96, won the NCAA individual title in 1996 and left to turn professional.
Facts
- He entered Stanford in 1994 on a golf scholarship and won the NCAA individual championship in 1996; teammates nicknamed him Urkel for his glasses and studious habits.
- He turned professional in August 1996 after two years at Stanford, signing a 40-million-dollar Nike contract before playing a single round as a professional.
- In 2019, after several back operations and eleven years without a major, he won the Masters again at 43.
Photographs
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and licence are shown on each image.