Tiger Woods

Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Currently the World No. 1, he was the highest-paid professional athlete in 2008, having earned an estimated $110 million from winnings and endorsements.

Woods has won 14 professional major golf championships, the second highest of any male player (Jack Nicklaus leads with 18), and 71 PGA Tour events, third all time. He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. Woods has won 16 World Golf Championships, and has won at least one of those events each of the 11 years they have been in existence.

Woods was born in Cypress, California, to Earl and Kultida Woods. This makes Woods himself half Asian one quarter African American, one eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch. Woods grew up in Orange County, California. In 1984 at the age of eight, he won the 9–10 boys' event, the youngest age group available, at the Junior World Golf Championships.

While attending Western High School in Anaheim at the age of 15, Woods became the youngest ever U.S. Junior Amateur Champion in 1991, was voted Southern California Amateur Player of the Year for the second consecutive year, and Golf Digest Junior Amateur Player of the Year for 1991. In 1992, he defended his title at the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, becoming the first multiple winner, competed in his first PGA Tour event, the Nissan Los Angeles Open, and was named Golf Digest Amateur Player of the Year, Golf World Player of the Year, and Golf week National Amateur of the Year.

The following year, Woods won his third consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, and remains the event's youngest-ever and only multiple winner. Woods won over the TPC at Saw grass in Florida. He was a member of the American team at the 1994 Eisenhower Trophy World Amateur Golf Team Championships, and the 1995 Walker Cup.

Woods was recruited very heavily by college golf powers, and chose Stanford University, the 1994 NCAA Division I champion. At age 20 in 1996, he became the first golfer to win three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles, winning at the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Oregon, and won the NCAA individual golf championship. While expectations for Woods were high, his form faded in the second half of 1997, and in 1998 he only won one PGA Tour event.