BOISE, Idaho — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…February 27, 1992:
Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to play in a PGA Tour event in 35 years. Woods was only 16 when he teed it up in the Nissan Los Angeles Open. Tiger didn’t make the cut at Riviera Country Club, but he would go on to win three amateur player of the year awards. After spending two years at Stanford and winning the NCAA individual championship in 1996, Woods finally turned pro in August of that year.
We’re reasonably familiar with Woods’ journey over the past 30 years — the extreme highs and the extreme lows. Let’s take a look here at the earlier years. Tiger was introduced to golf at the age of two by his father, Earl. Growing up, he wanted to play baseball (like his dad did at Kansas State), but he tore his rotator cuff. Earl was also a single-digit handicap amateur golfer, though, so golf it was. Woods played at military and municipal courses in Southern California as a youngster and developed quickly.
Tiger was on TV at an early age. He famously had a putting contest against Bob Hope at the age of three on a 1978 episode of the Mike Douglas Show, and at the age of five he appeared on ABC’s “That’s Incredible” and was featured in Golf Digest magazine. At the age of eight, Woods won his first world age group championship — and also broke 80 for the first time. At 11 years old, he beat his dad (and never lost to him again). And at 12, Tiger first broke 70.
Aa s 15-year-old high school student, Woods became the youngest U.S. Junior Amateur champion ever. And at 18, he became the youngest golfer ever to win the U.S. Amateur. Tiger graduated from Western High in Anaheim in 1994 and was voted “Most Likely To Succeed.” Despite some bad choices and serious missteps over the years, he has succeeded.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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