Tiger Woods is the world's best golfer. But after a decade at the pinnacle of the sports world, a Nov. 27, 2009, car accident set off a wave of revelations about his personal life and reports of marital infidelities linking him to multiple women. It caused him to take a leave from the PGA tour.
After a stint in rehab, three months later Woods admitted to repeated infidelities in a carefully orchestrated news conference, apologizing to his friends, family and colleagues, and acknowledging that he is in therapy.
He returned to golf for the 2010 Masters tournament in April, ending the four-month hiatus that had shattered his image as the gold standard in sports. At an event that was part soap opera, part athletic event and part stage show, Woods did not play spectacularly, but he was welcomed by the crowd and finished tied for fourth, only five strokes behind the winner, Phil Mickelson.
Woods has transformed golf with a combination of power, touch and tenacious resolve. His astonishing success, often accompanied by his signature fist pump after holing clutch shots, has even placed him on many people's short list of greatest American athletes, alongside figures like Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan.
Woods has captured many of professional golf's most revered records. He is in close pursuit of many of the rest, including Jack Nicklaus's 18 major tournament victories, the most prestigious record of them all. He routinely leads the sport's world rankings, a result of winning more than a quarter of the P.G.A. Tour tournaments that he's entered, a figure unrivaled in modern times.
Early on Nov. 27, 2009, Woods was left unconscious after hecrashed his 2009 Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant and a neighbor's tree as he was pulling out of his driveway in the gated community of Isleworth, an Orlando suburb where many high-profile athletes live. Woods and his lawyers declined to speak to the Florida Highway Patrol about the crash.
The incident was accompanied by reports and speculation about marital difficulties between Woods and his wife, Elin. The Windermere, Fla., police chief, Daniel Saylor, said that Woods's wife had used a golf club to break the rear window of the sport utility vehicle to help extricate him. The neighbors who rushed to his aid and called 911 offered their version of events through a lawyer, saying they believed Woods's injuries were caused by the crash alone. The Florida Highway Patrol said that aside from a $164 citation for careless driving, Woods would not face further charges.
Allegations of infidelity dominated news reports. In a widely quoted article in US Weekly magazine, Jaimee Grubbs, a Los Angeles cocktail waitress, detailed a lengthy affair with Woods in 2007.
In the February 2009 news conference, his first public appearance since the accident, Woods was measured and contrite. More than once he called his actions "foolish and selfish." He emphasized that any queries about his marriage, the circumstances of the car accident and the specific issues for which he requires rehabilitation would remain between him and his wife. He said he had never taken performance-enhancing drugs, and defended his wife by saying that she had never once had a physical altercation with him, nor had there been any domestic abuse in the family.
Born to parents both of mixed race and ethnicity, including African, Chinese and Thai, Woods sank his first putt as a toddler on "The Mike Douglas" television show. His legend has grown steadily since. He won three straight U.S. Junior Amateur titles and then three straight U.S. Amateur titles, both records. With the simple statement, "I guess, hello, world," Woods turned professional in 1996. A year later, at 21, he became the youngest winner of the Masters, and broke the tournament record for lowest overall score (-18) and margin of victory (12). In 2000, at 24, he became the youngest golfer to have won all four major tournaments.
Woods's rise to stardom was made more noteworthy and barrier-breaking because he is the first non-white to lead a traditionally white sport. At Augusta National Golf Club, for example, which hosts the Masters tournament, the first African-American member wasn't admitted until 1990.
Some tournaments have tried altering course layouts to reduce Woods's advantage, but to little obvious effect. While Woods is among the longest hitters in the game, his putting and creative shotmaking, along with his much-ballyhooed focus and competitiveness, separates him from the competition.
Because of his skill and charisma, golf audiences have grown dramatically and the purses at professional tournaments have increased significantly since he joined the P.G.A. Tour. Golf's television ratings are largely dictated by whether Woods enters that week's tournament or is in contention. Huge endorsement contracts for Woods have followed as well. Combined with his tournament earnings, they could make him the first athlete to earn more than $1 billion in his career.
In 2008, after finishing second in the Masters in April, Woods won the U.S. Open in June with a stirring victory over Rocco Mediate after an extra 19 holes, despite a painfully injured left knee and a fracture in his left leg. The win at the Torrey Pines golf course in San Diego was his 65th over all and his 14th major championship; Woods called it “probably the greatest tournament I’ve ever had.”
Nine days later, he had reconstructive surgery for a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He revealed that he had played the event not only on a bad knee, but with a fractured left tibia. He sat out the rest of the 2008 season and the first weeks of the 2009 tour — a nearly nine-month absence — returning in February 2009 for the Accenture Match Play Championships in Arizona.
Woods’s significance to the PGA Tour cannot be overstated. His galleries are larger than players drew at many tournaments in his absence, and television ratings for golf tournaments fell while he was away.
