The Fall of Tiger Woods

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Tiger Woods at the 2015 Masters.

Tiger Woods is perhaps the most known and talked about golfer in the world, but his recent struggles have many people questioning the once great athlete. Tiger started working with a pro golf coach when he was four years old, and at six, he hit his first hole-in-one shot. At 13, he was considered a scratch golfer, which means his average score per round was par or better. He played in his first PGA tournament at just 16 years old. Unfortunately, he missed the cut in the event and decided to return to amateur golf, where he won three consecutive titles from 1994 to 1996.

In 1996, Tiger went pro and signed a 40 million dollar Nike deal—before he even won a pro event—and it didn’t take him long to do that. That same year, he won three of eight tournaments and earned the Sports Illustrated “Sportsman of the Year” award. In 1997, Tiger Woods won his first major, The Masters, by 12 strokes and set a tournament record of 18 under par. This was the start of a dominant winning period for Tiger—by 2009, he had won 14 majors, 71 PGA tournaments and made the cut 225 times out of 231. But later that same year, Tiger got in a car crash with his wife while many speculated they were fighting. It came out that Tiger was having an affair, and the couple divorced while he took about a year away from golf. He returned in 2010, and it wasn’t pretty. He suffered a yearlong drought of winning, only to be followed by an injury and PGA championship loss the following season.

To put this in perspective, from 1996 to 2010, Tiger Woods was the number one ranked golfer in the world. By 2011, he was number 58. His first win since his divorce came in March of 2012. He finished that year with two more wins, leaving many people hopeful that Tiger would return to his trademark victorious streaks. But that wasn’t the case. Since 2012, Tiger has completed five event wins. From 2014 to 2015, he played in 18 events, finished in the top ten once and missed the cut six times. Woods hasn’t won a major since 2009, leaving him stuck at 14 majors career wins. The thought that Tiger Woods would catch the great Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors is now slim to none. Is the once-great Tiger Woods finished? “I’ve been told I can make a full recovery [on my back injury], and I have no doubt that I will,” Woods recently said. We’ll just have to wait and see what 2016 has in store for Tiger Woods.