At 45, Tiger Woods, who was injured in a road accident near Los Angeles on Tuesday, remains considered one of the best golfers in history, even though his last victory dates back to October 2019, an eternity for the “Tiger” who reigned supreme on the greens for a long time.
• Read also: Tiger Woods injured in Los Angeles car crash
Time wasted for golf, Woods made one of the most improbable comebacks in the history of the sport in 2019.
As often in his career – and even in his life – the American had not done things by halves.
He ended an eleven-year Grand Slam shortage by winning the prestigious Augusta Masters in April 2019, thanks to a series of incredible blows and his steel mind. As in its prime.
Six months later, he won his 82nd PGA Tour title at the Zozo Championship in Japan.
His almost unmatched record includes 15 Grand Slam titles, three less than his mentor Jack Nicklaus, and 82 PGA titles, his compatriot Sam Snead’s record equaled.
However, when he returned to the greens in January 2018, after several failed attempts and four back operations, including arthrodesis, a painful fusion of vertebrae, Woods doubted.
A time unable to walk, fallen back into the depths of the world rankings, depressed, he even considered putting his clubs away and putting an end to his career.
But Woods is a decidedly separate athlete.
He is the one who took golf to a new dimension. One of those very rare sportsmen, like Roger Federer in tennis, who alone embody their discipline, with an aura that goes beyond the hushed surroundings of golf.
When he arrived on the golf world in the mid-90s, he aroused extraordinary interest from the start. Young, mixed (born of a black father and an Asian mother), he dusted off his sport.
His more aggressive game, his physical approach to a discipline still reluctant in gyms, his passion that he does not hesitate to express … A cocktail that immediately fascinates. And above all, he wins, quickly and a lot.
A phenomenon of precocity, he became the youngest winner of the Masters, the youngest world number one, the youngest golfer to win 50 tournaments on the North American circuit.
Between 1996 and 2008, he outrageously dominated his sport, pocketed 14 Grand Slam titles and took golf to another planet. Hers.
Then the machine stops. In 2009, the revelation of his numerous infidelities unsettled the one believed at the time to be unshakeable and created a resounding scandal which the celebrity press revived. He separates from his wife, the Swedish model Elin Nordegren, with whom he had two children.
Forced by its sponsors, including sports giant Nike, which makes it one of its leading figures, to make a public apology, its image is seriously crumbling. His career had a first stop.
–
–
He falls, but does not give up. It will take four years to find the chair of world No. 1 and, in 2013, manages to become the highest paid sportsman in the world again according to the economic magazine Forbes, which estimates the total of his total earnings at more than 1.5 billion dollars. gains since his professional debut in 1996.
It is then his physique which abandons him. Hit in the back, he was operated on for the first time in 2014. His swing is breaking down, his mind falters and his level worries.
He again feeds the news section by being arrested, asleep at the wheel of his car, under the influence of a cocktail of drugs and antidepressants one evening in May 2017 in Florida.
Woods eventually got up and won. But last January, he had his back operated again to remove a fragment of a disc that was pinching a nerve.
No date was set for his return to the greens. It was before his car accident on Tuesday.
Tiger Woods in brief:
Last name: Woods
First name: Eldrick Tont
Nickname: Tiger
Date of Birth: 12/30/1975 (45 years old)
Place of birth: Cypress (United States, California)
Nationality: American
Family: divorced from Elin Nordegren (2004-2010), two children (Sam Alexis, born in 2007 and Charlie Axel, born in 2009)
Cut: 1,88 m
Weight: 80 kg
Sport/Discipline: golf
World ranking: 50e (best ranking: N.1, eleven times, the last time on May 17, 2014)
Professional beginnings: 27/08/1996
AWARDS:
- 82 victories on the PGA Tour (most successful player in history, tied with compatriot Sam Snead), including 15 Grand Slam tournaments:
- 5 Masters (1997, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2019)
- 4 PGA Championship (1999, 2000, 2006, 2007)
- 3 US Open (2000, 2002, 2008)
- 3 British open (2000, 2005, 2006)
- Ryder Cup winner with USA (1999)
- Winner of the Presidents Cup with the United States (2000, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013)
- Elected “player of the year” in 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2013
HIS MEMORIES:
- 683 weeks in first place in the world, including 281 consecutive between June 2005 and October 2010
- 142 cuts made consecutively between 1998 and 2005.
- 18 victories in WGC, the World Golf Championship tournaments established in 1999.
- Youngest Masters winner, at 21, three months and 14 days in 1997.
- Youngest world No. 1 in golf history, June 15, 1997, at 21 years and 24 weeks (after 42 weeks as a professional).
- First player to consecutively win the four Grand Slam titles over two years, the US Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship in 2000 and the Masters in 2001.
- Youngest player to win 50 PGA titles
–
:background_color(white)/hotmart/product_contents/c071fc7a-f351-41f5-a493-638ef2a871e1/nordwoodthemesyyMJNPgQX8unsplash.jpg "WHATSAPP BUSSINEL FUNNEL – Jaime Vivero Fassler – learn a new skill – Online Courses and Subscription Services")