Childhood and beginner golfing career

Woods grew up in Orange County, California. He was a child prodigy who was introduced to golf before the age of two by his athletic father Earl Woods.

Earl was a single-digit handicap amateur golfer who also was one of the earliest African-American college baseball players at Kansas State University.

Woods told reporters he had wanted to be a baseball player like his father but abandoned that goal after tearing his rotator cuff.

His father was a member of the military and had playing privileges at the Navy golf course beside the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, which allowed Tiger to play there.

Tiger also played at the par 3 Heartwell golf course in Long Beach, as well as some of the municipals in Long Beach.

In 1978, Woods putted against comedian Bob Hope in a television appearance on The Mike Douglas Show.

At age three, he shot a 48 over nine holes at the Navy course. At age five, he appeared in Golf Digest and on ABC's That's Incredible Before turning seven, Woods won the Under Age 10 section of the Drive, Pitch, and Putt competition, held at the Navy Golf Course in Cypress.

In 1984 at the age of eight, he won the 9–10 boys' event, the youngest age group available, at the Junior World Golf Championships.

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.