TIGER WOODS

Professional golfer, born Eldrick Woods on December 30, 1975, in Orlando, Florida. Early on, Tiger’s parents, Earl and Kultilda Woods, introduced their only child to the sport he has come to dominate, giving him a sawed-off putter to practice with as soon as he could stand up on his own. At the age of 8, he won the first of six Optimist International Junior World Titles. After perhaps the most remarkable amateur career ever—he won the U.S. Junior Amateur Championships in 1991, 1992, and 1993, and the U.S. Amateur title in 1994, 1995, and 1996—and two years at Stanford University, where he won the NCAA title, Woods turned pro in the summer of 1996

His potential seemed unlimited, especially when he won 2 titles and finished in the top 10 five times out of his first 8 Professional Golf Association tour events. In 1997, at the age of 21, Woods became the youngest player ever to win the Masters (by the largest margin in a major championship in this century), and the first person of African or Asian descent to win a major golf championship. That year, his first full year on the tour, Woods was chosen as the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year and ESPN Male Athlete of the Year and became the youngest player ever to hold the No. 1 ranking in professional golf.

Nothing—not even an unbelievably lucrative endorsement portfolio—foretold what would happen in 1999, when Woods’s success reached heights never before imagined. With his victory at the American Express Championship on November 7, in Valderrama, Spain, Woods became the first golfer in 25 years to win 8 PGA tour events in one season (including the PGA Championships). He also shattered the previous single season winnings record by nearly $3 million, making him the first player ever to break the $6 million mark with $6.6 million.

True to form, Woods only got better in 2000, when he capped off an impressive first half of the year by winning his third major, the 2000 U.S. Open, in Pebble Beach, California. The No.1-ranked player in the world, Woods outclassed the competition by a record margin, winning the tournament by 15 strokes and breaking the standard for a major tournament set by Tom Morris at the 1862 British Open. In July 2000, Woods won the British Open, becoming--at 24--the youngest player ever to win all four major titles: the PGA Championship, the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the British Open. A month later, he successfully defended his 1999 title at the PGA Championship in a playoff victory, becoming only the second player (after Ben Hogan in 1953) to win three major titles in one year. He won the Canadian Open, his fifth tournament of the summer (out of the seven that he played), in September.

Off the links, Woods was involved in a lengthy controversy in 2000 regarding his filming of a Buick commercial during the Screen Actors' Guild (SAG) six-month strike against advertisers. In December, the SAG slapped Woods with a $100,000 fine (though several of its members were said to have wanted him kicked out of the union entirely).

Woods' first title in 2001 came at the Bay Hill Invitational in March, when he beat Phil Mickelson by one stroke to end a nine-tournament winless streak. With a win at the Masters on April 8, 2001, Woods became the first player in history to sweep all four major tournaments in a row, further cementing his place in the history books and his status as the best golfer in the world.

In 2002, Woods' game has shown no signs of flagging. In June, he captured the U.S. Open title, making him the first golfer since Jack Nicklaus to capture the year's first two major tournaments. He won the Masters at Augusta earlier this year