Earl
Woods, who was more determined to raise a good son than a great golfer and became
the architect and driving force behind Tiger Woods’ phenomenal career, died
Wednesday morning at his home in Cypress, Calif. He was 74.
“My dad was my best friend and greatest role model, and I will miss him deeply,”
Tiger Woods said on his Web site. “I’m overwhelmed when I think of all of the great
things he accomplished in his life. He was an amazing dad, coach, mentor, soldier,
husband and friend. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him, and I’m honored to
continue his legacy of sharing and caring.” A habitual smoker who had heart bypass
surgery in 1986, Woods was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1998 and was treated
with radiation, but the cancer returned in 2004 and spread throughout his body.
Last month, he was too frail to travel to the Masters for the first time.
The last tournament Woods attended was the Target World Challenge in December
2004, when his son rallied to win and then donated $1.25 million to the Tiger Woods
Foundation that his father helped him establish. The Tiger Woods Learning Center,
another vision inspired by his father, opened in February.
Earl Woods was more than a golf dad, more than a zealous father who lived
vicariously through his son’s achievements.
He had played catcher for Kansas State, the first black to play baseball in the
Big Eight Conference, and he had been a Green Beret for two tours in Vietnam. But
he felt his true purpose was to train Tiger, and he watched his son evolve into the
dominant player of his time the youngest player to win the career Grand Slam
and one of the most celebrated athletes in the world.
“I knew Tiger was special the day he was born,” Woods said in a May 2000 interview
with The Associated Press.
Woods introduced Tiger to golf by swinging a club as his son watched in a high
chair. Tiger appeared on the “Mike Douglas Show” at age 2, played exhibitions with
Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus, and his television appeal was solely responsible for
quantum gains in PGA Tour prize money.
Even so, Woods said he never intended to create a champion golfer.
“I make it very, very clear that my purpose in raising Tiger was not to raise a
golfer. I wanted to raise a good person,” Woods told Golf Digest magazine about his
book, “Training a Tiger: A Father’s Guide to Raising a Winner in Both Golf and
Life.” Woods gave his son freedom to develop a love for golf on his own, not
letting him play unless his homework was done, making him call his father at work
to ask if they could practice. Along with the games they played, Woods taught him
to be mentally strong by jingling change in his pockets and warning him of water
hazards when his son was in the middle of his swing.
It all worked.
Tiger Woods set records that might never be broken by winning three straight U.S.
Junior titles, followed by three straight U.S.
Amateurs. In 10 years as a pro, he already has won 48 times on the PGA Tour with 10
major championships, and he set a PGA Tour record by going seven years and 142
consecutive events making the cut.
In the forward to his father’s book, Woods said: “In retrospect, golf for me was
an apparent attempt to emulate the person I looked up to more than anyone: my
father. He was instrumental in helping me develop the drive to achieve, but his
role as well as my mother’s was one of support and guidance, not interference.”
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said Woods will be remembered for providing Tiger
every opportunity “to become the world’s best golfer and an outstanding
representative of the game and its values.” Foremost for Earl Woods was raising a
son who could influence life beyond golf. Woods was black and his wife, Kultida,
whom he met during one of his tours to Vietnam, was Thai and Chinese.
Tiger Woods won twice in his first seven PGA Tour events after turning pro in 1996
at age 20 and was named Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. Woods predicted
greatness for Tiger on and off the course, telling the magazine that his son “will
do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity.” “He’s the
bridge between the East and the West,” the father said. “There is no limit because
he has the guidance. I don’t know yet exactly what form this will take. But he is
the Chosen One.
He’ll have the power to impact nations. Not people. Nations. The world is just
getting a taste of his power.” Perhaps the lasting image of Earl Woods came the
next spring, at the 1997 Masters, when he stepped onto the 18th green and wrapped
his arms around a 21-year-old son who shattered records at Augusta National, a
watershed victory that changed the appeal of golf and sent him to the greatness his
father had always predicted.
Earl Woods was born March 5, 1932, in Manhattan, Kan., the youngest of six
children. His parents died by the time he was 13.
His father wanted him to play for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues,
and his mother stressed education. Woods wound up going to Kansas State, graduating
in 1953 with a degree is sociology.
Woods did two tours during the Vietnam War as a member of the U.S. Army Special
Forces, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
It was his second tour that shaped the latter part of his life.
He met Kultida Punsawad, who was working as a receptionist in Thailand, and
married her in 1969. He fought alongside Lt. Col.
Nguyen T. Phong of the South Vietnamese army, a friend he nicknamed “Tiger” because
of his courage and bravery. Woods promised Tiger Phong that he would name a son
after him.
Eldrick “Tiger” Woods was born Dec. 30, 1975.
Earl Woods moved to Cypress, Calif., to the house where he died and set up a
makeshift practice range in the garage with a mat and a net, placing his son in a
high chair as he practiced.
The education went beyond swinging a club.
“I tried to break him down mentally, tried to intimidate him verbally, by saying,
‘Water on the right, OB on the left,’ just before his downswing,” Woods once said
in an AP interview. “He would look at me with the most evil look, but he wasn’t
permitted to say anything. That’s the frustration. He couldn’t say a word, but he
always had an escape word. He never used it.
“One day I did all my tricks, and he looked at me and smiled,” Woods said. “At the
end of the round, I told him, ‘Tiger, you’ve completed the training.’ And I made
him a promise. ‘You’ll never run into another person as mentally tough as you.’ He
hasn’t. And he won’t.” Woods was proud of saying he never left his son with a
babysitter, but his goal was to eventually let Tiger run his own life.
“I had pulled back, one item at a time,” Woods once told the AP. “Instead of going
to several tournaments, it was a couple of tournaments, then one tournament. All of
a sudden, he was running everything. I stood there and watched it happen. Because
that was my job to prepare him to leave.” Besides his wife and Tiger, Woods is
survived by three children from his previous marriage.
