Tiger Woods

Eldrick "Tiger" Woods was born on 30 December 1975 in Cypress, California, to an African American father, Earl Woods, and a Thai mother, Kultida. Introduced to golf before he could walk properly, he was famously shown putting against entertainer Bob Hope on national television as a toddler, and by age 11 was undefeated in more than 30 junior tournaments across Southern California.

Woods won three consecutive US Junior Amateur titles and three consecutive US Amateur titles before turning professional in 1996. In 1997, at just 21, he won his first major championship, the Masters, by a record 12 strokes — becoming the first golfer of Black or Asian heritage ever to win one of golf's four major championships, in a sport that had excluded players like him from private clubs during his own childhood.

Over the following decade, Woods dominated the sport as few athletes have dominated any sport, completing the career Grand Slam at 24, the youngest ever to do so, and briefly holding all four major titles simultaneously in 2000–2001. He would go on to win 15 major championships in total — second only to Jack Nicklaus's 18 — including a comeback triumph at the 2019 Masters that came after years of injury and personal setbacks.

Woods has won 82 PGA Tour events, tied for the most in history, and spent a record 683 weeks ranked world number one. Beyond his own record, his rise transformed the economics of professional golf, driving a dramatic increase in prize money and television audiences throughout his career.