Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods was born with a club in his hand and golf cemented in his DNA from an early age from his father, Earl. As a youngster, Tiger would watch and mimic his father in their indoor hitting net in the garage.
Tiger grew up dominating the golf scene at every level, and first won on the national level in 1984 at the age of eight, when he won the 9–10 boys’ event at the Junior World Championship at Torrey Pines. He first broke 80 at age eight. He went on to win the Junior World Championships six times, including four consecutive wins from 1988 to 1991.
Tiger’s U.S.G.A. dominance began in 1991 with a win at The U.S. Junior Amateur. He would go on to win two more consecutive U.S. Juniors in 1992 and 1993 and then he would go on to conquer the next level.
In 1994, Tiger would begin a U.S. Amateur run that nobody in the history of golf has ever duplicated. Tiger’s run of three straight U.S. Amateur Championships from 1994 to 1996 culminated with a win at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Portland, OR, defeating the Silver Club Golfing Society’s Founder, Steve Scott on the 38th hole of the match.
He had an amazing run of 6 straight U.S.G.A. Championships and a perfect 36-0 match play record during the run from ’91 to ’96. One amazing statistic from his unparalleled run is that Tiger went to the final hole (or further) in every final match and won every time. He may have been up or he may have been down and forced a playoff, but each and every match went its limit and then some. Clearly a sign that he thrived and succeeded in the most pressure packed moments in the game of golf.
In 1996, Tiger also won the NCAA Individual Championship at The Honors Course while playing for Stanford University. Tiger had an 8-shot lead heading into the final round, and even despite a final-round 80, Tiger captured the title on the difficult Pete Dye layout.
Tiger was the low amateur in the 1995 Masters as well as the 1996 Open Championship. The day following the 1996 U.S. Amateur, Tiger turned professional and made his debut at the Greater Milwaukee Open where he famously said, “Hello World”. Now with 80 PGA Tour victories to his credit, Tiger has his amateur career well in his rearview mirror, but without this early success he may never achieved such heights.
