USA TODAY International Edition
Tiger Woods draws on lessons he learned from his parents
Family endured tough times together
NEW YORK While every golf fan knows the story of Tiger Woods’ dad, how the ex- Army officer introduced his son to golf and pushed him to become the best in the world, it was his mom who induced fear in young Tiger growing up.
During an exclusive interview Monday with USA TODAY Sports to promote the release of The 1997 Masters: My Story, Woods discussed the role his mother, Kultida, has played in his career. He describes her as “strong and feisty” in the book.
“My dad was always the person who would plant seeds and give me encouragement but also would say things that would fester inside me that wouldn’t come to fruition for a while,” Woods said. “He was very worldly and deep in his thinking. My mom was the enforcer. My dad may have been in the Special Forces, but I was never afraid of him. My mom’s still here, and I’m still deathly afraid of her. She’s a very tough, tough old lady, very demanding. She was the hand, she was the one, I love her so much, but she was tough.
“There was zero negotiation.”
Now, Woods, 41, uses his own parenting style on his two children, Sam and Charlie. He’s talked of spending time playing soccer with his kids during his months- long absence from the PGA Tour. Woods hasn’t played on tour since January and withdrew from two tournaments while rehabbing his back. He was also unable to play last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, which he has won eight times.
With the Masters less than three weeks away, Woods says he’s working to get back in time for the major championship that he’s won four times.
“I’ve been a part of so many Masters over the course of my career, I know exactly what it takes to get ready for that event,” he said. “Now it’s my job to go out there and get ready. I hope I can.”
In his new book written with golf writer Lorne Rubenstein, Woods discusses a wide range of topics, including his preparation for the historic 1997 Masters win — he would go on to win 13 more major championships — why he likes to wear red on Sundays and how his upbringing shaped his career.
Earl Woods was tough on Tiger, whom he taught to play golf as soon as he could walk.
“I was not big. I was always playing up in age brackets, so I always felt behind,” Woods said. “And because I was behind, I always felt that in order for me to execute and be able to be successful I needed to be tougher mentally. So I asked my dad to come down on me and put me through what he went through in Special Ops training. And it was tough. There were a lot of times I wanted to wheel on him and take him out, but as time went on, it didn’t bother me, and it made our relationship better.”
Earl Woods was a strong presence throughout Tiger’s early career. Behind the 18th green during the 1997 Masters win, the two shared an emotional moment when Tiger embraced his dad in front of a packed gallery and with millions at home watching on TV. Tiger has established a scholarship in Earl’s name as part of the Tiger Woods Foundation.
Woods touches on race and how the color of his skin and the prejudice he experienced influenced him. Earl Woods, who was African American, died in 2006 at the age of 74. He had battled pros- tate cancer. When Earl died, Tiger called him “my best friend and greatest role model.”
Kultida Woods came to the USA from Thailand. She has been in the gallery for some of Tiger’s greatest victories, including the 1997 Masters.
At the 1995 U. S. Open, Tiger Woods made up a term to describe his race, he wrote. “I referred to myself as a Cablinasian, a made- up word that includes my Caucasian, black, and Asian heri- tage. I never thought it was right or fair to think of me only as an African- American, and I never will. But I learned that to have one drop of black blood in you in America meant that you were considered an AfricanAmerican.”
Woods reflected on his father’s struggles. Earl Woods went to college in the 1950s at Kansas State, where he was on scholarship as a baseball catcher. He was the only black athlete at the time playing in the conference that would become the Big 12.
“I didn’t have it anywhere near as difficult as my father had it; this was before the Civil Rights movement ... all the things he had to endure,” Woods said. “I never had to endure them at that level. Was it tough at times? Yeah. There were some tough moments I had to endure, when I was in a sport where I was a minority, and often times the only one.
“My dad had to endure a lot of that stuff, and my mother, all the things she had to endure being an immigrant from Thailand. We always felt it was a team, a family, we had to endure some tough moments together. That is part of my life. It’s part of being a minority in golf.”