Tiger Woods with his father Earl and his mother Cultida in 1990.
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In the moments after Tiger Woods won the masters of 2019, The first person to greet him after the 18th green was his son Charlie. He was 10 years old at the time and went into his father’s stretched weapons, their hug by echoing another Augusta national hug between father and son, when Tiger Earl’s father had given him an iconic bear behind the same green at the end of 1997 masters. That was two decades ago. More than a dozen diploma before. Some lives before.
But the other hug? This belonged to his mother, Cultida, as he had in his first masters, the harsh and loving matriarch of their family, someone Tiger has long said “does not get enough credit”, someone he described as a “force of nature all of her,” in the announcement of her death on Tuesday. She was there in the return of her son to Glory, just as she had been in his first great victory and as she had been before, between and since.
I wasn’t there in ’97 but I remember that scene In 2019The largest day in modern professional golf history, at the height of the impossible return of Tiger at the top of the game. That Saturday night, Tida had helped arrange her grandson Charlie and Sam to fly to the last round; They would arrive on Sunday morning and walked nine money, but withdrew to the club for the back. (It is difficult to get a good look if you are a 10-year-old child, after all, or even if you are Tiger Woods’ mother) and so is where they held trial, quiet in tense moments, while shouting after birds, Tida in particular eager to scream at her son on the screen.
As Woods’s forehead sat securely on the 18th Street, feeding a two-stroke lead, his family made their way from the club, crossing the Great Lis tree and down the hill up to 18- of green. From there, they could see as he finished a two -legged to seal the deal. Then came the round of hugs, one after another.
“She kept saying she was so proud of me,” Tiger remembered later. “That my dad would be so proud if he were here.” He added that, for everything that had happened between his first and last victories, it would be constant.
“Amazing is amazing,” he said. “It’s 22 years. Life goes on. There is a continuation: my mother was there. I said, ‘We did it. I love you very much, Mom. ‘”
The moment sparked decades of gratitude and reminded of Tida’s son, thinking about their days at Plymouth Dushster, unfolding the road map to bring them at a time of 7am tournament.
“She’s always there. She is always present in every round I play, ”he said.
In 2022, when the tiger was induced In the fame hall at PGA Tour’s headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., He delivered a 15-minute speech in which he barely mentioned his professional career at all. Instead, he bowed in his early days, all the way to the beginning, again when he was six years old and Tida would take him to play a PAR-3 course, Heartwell Golf Park in Long Beach, Calif., Where he ‘d developed his game and learned to beat the much older competition. She pledged to let her practice there for free. Tiger got it from there.
He remembered his mother as his first supporter, though unconsciously; At the age of 8 she would drop it on the 75 cent – 25 course for a hot dog, 25 to use the salary phone to call it and 25 others for backups.
“Well, that backup came back to setting the competitions, which I ended up by porching some other neighborhoods,” Tiger said.
He mentioned him as his first co-conspirator, too; When he began to transcend Heartwell, she would leave her at the entrance to the nearby Navy Golf course, where he would screw in the course, look for lost golf balls and eventually meet with his father to play as much more holes as they can in the dark.
While Tiger talked during his childhood that evening in Ponte Vedra he strangled him, thinking about how his parents had given him everything they had.
“My family made a harsh decision, and at the age of 14 and a half we brought a second mortgage so that I could go out and play Tour Ajga,” Tiger remembered. “Mom stayed at home. The father traveled. And I went out and played Tour Ajga on our second mortgage.
“So without Mom’s sacrifices, who led me to all those young golf tours, and Dad, who is not here, but that prompted me to fight for what I believe in, tracking After my dreams, nothing will ever go to you, everything will be won if you do not go out there and decide to work, do not go out and make efforts, one, you will not get the results but two Importantly, you do not deserve it you have to win it. “
That mentality determined the pursuit of Woods’ greatness even as young. And when, leaving Stanford, Nike and the title made him rich overnight.
“The first thing I have been able to do is for me to be able to pay that mortgage,” he said.
There are layers For Tiger-Tida relationships, stories that will emerge in days and weeks and years. From her role as the “implementer” to the inspiration behind the red dress, his “color of power”, on Sunday in the last rounds in the way she would get him a new tiger head every year and of onion “rak jak mea” – Thai for “love from Mom” - inside each.
She was even there in the latest competitive venture of Woods, TGL, where only last week he saw it in the stand and lit a fuss and a wave in its direction.
“Hello Mom,” he shouted.
It was the last example of TIDA’s show. Again again that line, One Woods fell behind the 2019 masters.
“She’s always there. It is always present in every round I play. ”
The adaptation he used the current time. Let it remain very true after its passage.
Dylan Dothier is an elderly writer for Golf Magazine/Golf.com. Native Williamstown, Mass. Dothier is a graduate of Williams College, where he graduated in English, and he is the author of 18 in Americawhich details last year as an 18-year-old living out of his car and playing a round of golf in every state.
